Familiar Hauntings
by Chandler01
Summary: Claire tries to forget her horrific past and starts life anew at college, yet old memories come back to haunt her. Now, with her friend's lives in danger as well, a desperate struggle for survival ensues, and Claire discovers even her school's dark ties.
1. Chapter One

Author's Note: Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? It took me forever to finish this story, so for the people that enjoyed it, I'm sorry I took so long. So, just for you guys, I've decided to just finish the last two chapters and post it all together as one big beast of a story. I've also reworked any inconsistencies that might have plagued the earlier run, so hopefully I got them all. Heh heh, this is my first venture into fanfiction, so let me know what you think. Anyway, happy reading, and feel free to post any comments on the reviews page, or email me at itsthatoneguy@excite.com and I'd be way grateful! Okay, well, enough of my rambling. Enjoy.

-Chandler.

_________________________

Familiar Hauntings

Chapter One

"I can't believe this," Lori removed her wire frame glasses and cried bitter sobs, as she finally allowed her emotions to overtake her. Devon put his hand on her heaving shoulders, in an attempt to comfort her, as well as silence the screaming feelings inside is own heart.

"But there's really nothing we can do about our situation, guys. Just stick together." Bethani stared at her hands resting on the table. Her eyebrows raised slightly, and she swallowed hard, summoning more courage from the quickly depleting reservoir from within.

"No one will even tell us what's going on!" Eric finally yelled from somewhere behind his disturbed expression. He threw his arms about wildly in a fit of frustration, his eyebrows twitching slightly over his intensive, fearful eyes.

"I'll tell you what's going on, comrade," Bobbye pulled back her long blonde hair into a ponytail and fitted it with a scrunchie before continuing. "We're being quarantined."

"But why?" Bethani asked quietly.

"Something's really wrong here," Demi said quietly, her hands fidgeting with a napkin on the table. "I'm starting to wish I hadn't come down here for school."

Claire Redfield remained silent as she continued to brood inside.

The seven friends sat in the university cafeteria, quietly expressing their dispositions to the newly formed crisis at hand. They had trays of food, however none of them were eating, it was more of a distraction to keep them from going insane with worry. Their table was not unlike many others in the café. In fact, frenzied yelling and crying could be heard everywhere, all around them. "I know that a cafeteria is expected to be loud," Devon thought with a troubled mind, "but this is just…disturbing." Devon was a somewhat muscular young man at the age of twenty, and was a junior in his college. He wore a dark blue short-sleeve sweater with a white shirt underneath. His fingers were occupied at the moment with his short brown hair, and they rested on the top of his head, with his forehead resting on the meat of his palms. His hazel eyes looked at his tray, or rather through it, as he was lost in his thoughts. 

His eyes turned to Lori, a longhaired brunette who happened to be his best friend. Her crying was still racking her thin frame, and through her red eyes was an expression of total despair. It unsettled Devon to see her like that. She thumbed her red leather coat absently as she cried.

"I say we find out what's going on here, at least," Bobbye said, "I'm sure those guys in white know what's going on, since they're the ones that put all this together." Bobbye was a quite muscular young lady, and she was involved in many sports at the college. She was also very intelligent, however, she still managed to round out her features by being quite attractive, as well. Her eyes looked to each person at the table for approval.

"I don't care." Demi finally said, "I just want out. I want to get out of here." The petite freshman had come to the Arden Springs University in central Texas because of its incredible biology program, which was one of the best in the nation. That, and also because of one of her closest friends, Devon. Her beautiful mid-neck length hair was dyed to an unnatural dark reddish-brown. It was a quite exotic look seemed to demand attention from anyone around her. Her normally sparkling green eyes had been clouded over with worry and exhaustion. "It's been like this here for three days, and no answers. The dean keeps telling us that they're coming…" Demi trailed back into her own deep mind.

"…But he only tells us it's safety precautions." Eric finally finished. He was a small-statured guy with curly brown hair, with blond highlights at the tips. He wore a plaid blue overshirt, with a black undershirt beneath. His brow furrowed at his response, before lightening with his next thought. "But you know, maybe it's not that big of a deal."

"Please!" Bethani scolded. The cheerleader glared at Eric with piercing brown eyes. She was quite beautiful with her wavy brown hair and slender figure, if a little stuck on herself. She and Devon had shared a couple of classes together their freshman year, and had been friends since, even if it was a rather odd friendship that mainly consisted of batting sarcasm at one another, with no room for much of other matters…until now. She tugged at the bottom of her orange American Eagle shirt. Her next sentence was quieter, more composed. "We would be able to leave the school if it wasn't 'that big of a deal.' Military's here, media's here, it's bad, whatever it is." Beth looked over at Claire, who was staring down at her red leather biker's jacket, fingering the torn edges of the shoulder seams absently. "Claire, you okay?"

"Yeah." It was a simple response from the only student in the school that had a good idea at what was happening, or at least about to happen. She had endured more pain and hardship than most other people could even imagine, and her heart was tearing apart inside to know that it might be starting all over again. She had wanted to tell her new friends about the other life she had before college, before normality was a possibility. She had been involved in the Raccoon City incident that all of them knew about, but none of them, like the rest of the civilian public, had details on. She had wanted to tell them that she had fought through hordes of undead to uncover Umbrella and destroy them, but it almost seemed to be more trouble than it was worth to unearth that pain. If they knew what she knew, then hope for them would become something of the past. She cared for them, and didn't want them to go through that gut-wrenching pain she had to live through. _"If the time comes,"_ she thought, _"if I have to, I'll tell them."_ She was now a somewhat silent person, constantly battling the ghosts of her memories. They never left her alone, no matter how hard she would try to deny the fact that they were not a part of her. She would try to push them away, but in the back of her mind, she knew the state Umbrella worked under, and she knew it wasn't over. Would it ever be over? _"Why can't I just be a normal teenager?"_ she thought to herself.

"Yes," the sophomore repeated to Bethani, "I'm fine."

"Okay…" Beth dropped the subject, unconvinced.

There was a long silence at the table. None of them were really in the mood for talking.

"I'm not eating this food." Demi finally said. "Look at it, it's gross."

"I'm not either," Devon said, pushing away his tray, until it bumped Demi's across the table. She glanced up at him for it, but when she saw that his action was devoid of intention, she looked away, and said nothing.

"It's eight o'clock." Eric said after another long silence. "I'm going to try and get some sleep tonight. The past three days have been…" He didn't finish, but he didn't have to. Everyone understood. "…And we still have classes tomorrow, for some reason." He opened his mouth to say something else, but his eyes told his friends what he was feeling. He looked away, and stood up from the table, and walked his tray to the conveyor belt before hitting the door open out of frustration. The crew waited until he had rounded the corner before returning to their attempt of conversation.

"I think I'm going to follow suit and try and get some sleep." Claire said, putting her drink on her tray of uneaten food. She smiled weakly at her friends. "I have food that tastes way better than this in the dorm." Seeing the glum faces of her remaining friends, she added an encouragement. "Hey, I'm sure all this will blow over in a couple of days. We just have to hang in there, okay?" She lied. She hated lying to her friends. Besides, positive thinking wasn't something associated with her a lot anymore. She gave another awkward smile before leaving the café.

The remaining four sat there, silent, each waiting for someone else to speak.

"Do you guys want to go and walk somewhere? Devon eventually asked the remaining girls.

"No comrade, I'm going to go jog, then I'm going back for tonight." Bobbye flipped her hair onto her other shoulder, and stood up, putting her backpack on her shoulders.

"I'll go," Demi said.

"Me too," Lori followed.

They all walked over to the doors, and Devon turned to look back at the still-crowded café. All his other friends were still eating, the mask of depression heavy upon their faces. They seemed tired, pale. Devon wondered if that's how he looked to everyone as well. He frowned, and walked out the doors.

****

Jim Bowman dialed the number again, but to no avail. "Damn you, Devon!" he cursed as the operator's message clicked on the receiver, informing him that the line was no longer in service. He knew it wasn't Devon's fault, but he felt the need to blame someone, and Devon was the first person that came to mind. He hung up the phone, and stared at it, silent, only to pick it up and dialing Devon's number one more time. He waited before sighing in frustration and slamming the phone down. He looked around his dorm room lost in thought, and decided that now would probably be a good time to leave. Bowman just hoped he wasn't too late already. Arden Springs, Texas was a long way from Fort Collins, Colorado, but this was important. He knew that the trip down there wouldn't be in vain, but he hoped that Devon would still be alive as well. He grabbed his truck keys off the hook, and bolted out the door.

"If you're dead, I'll kill you Devon." 


	2. Chapter Two

Familiar Hauntings

Chapter Two

Demi tossed over again in her bed, before throwing the pillow over her head in aggravation. There were people yelling or screaming in the halls of the McCulloch dormitory, and it was almost twelve. Then again, there was always noise at twelve at night. Demi once again found that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't sleep, and her thoughts began to drift back to the past day, back to the conversation with Devon and Lori after dinner.

__

"So, what do you think is going on? Seriously Devon, let me know."

"I'm not sure, Demi."

"Come on, you have to be leaning towards something here."

"…I think they're looking for someone on campus."

"Like a killer or something?"

"I don't know. They don't want them to escape. Why else would they use such force in a situation like this?"

"It must be pretty dangerous."

"Yeah."

Demi frowned. He was right. Unmarked white vans had surrounded the entire campus. Maybe two hundred or more. The men were armed with some type of machine guns, and they had voiced their intentions of taking fatal force against escapees if necessary. But Devon didn't know any more than she did. He was only speculating. Maybe she was looking to him for resolution? She wasn't sure. She confused herself further, as she realized that a part of her was comforted by Devon's suggested answer. Why would she be comforted by something like that? Were her expectations worse than his answer deep down in her heart? She shifted again.

"_Well, promise us that you'll stick by us, Devon."_

"Yeah, Lori, you know I will."

Devon _did_ comfort her. He held a sincere quality in the things he said that other people normally lacked. She knew he liked her, too, which always made her wonder if he did things for her because she was his friend, or…

"_You two are more special to me than you know. I'd do everything I could to keep you two safe. I mean that."_

…Maybe he just wanted her to notice him. That wasn't the problem. She had noticed him, but she just didn't know if they had a future together, like that. Maybe they did, who was she to guess? And then there was Eric, who also openly liked her. There was a hint of jealousy in each of the boy's eyes when the other was with her.

"_Nothing will take you two from me."_

She smiled. Even though she wouldn't admit it, she liked that two guys were unconsciously fighting over her. Maybe it was wrong for her to feel that way, but she couldn't deny her emotions deep down. It was for that reason that she was equally jealous of Lori, for being so close to him. Why did she feel that way, if she didn't want to be with him? She was confused, and audibly sighed into her pillow, which was still placed over her head.

A banging on the door shook her to the present.

She looked over at her roommate, who must have been out regardless, as she moved not an inch, even though the rappings got progressively louder.

"Hello?" She said cautiously, thinking it to be some drunken guy trying to enter the wrong room.

The banging stopped. She sat up in bed, and listened. It was completely silent, except for the yells and moans, but this was college, after all. She exhaled a deep breath, and lay back down on her pillow, staring up at the ceiling. Suddenly, the beating on her door returned, followed by another pair of hands that started to rattle the knob. She jumped up to make sure it was locked. When she was satisfied that it was, she peered through the peephole in the door--And screamed.

****

Devon quickened his pace to Anderson hall, his home. He had caught a bad feeling as he was sitting out next to the campus pond, and his sixth sense seemed to tell him to go back inside. He had spotted a few individuals walking around the campus, apparently drunk, as their steps were taken with an awkward gait. He fumbled with his wallet as he fished the ID card out of the side pocket. He entered his digit code, and the electronic lock slid open with a metallic resonation. He pushed the door open, and began to go up the stairs to the third floor. However, as he turned to the stairs he almost slipped and fell on his rear. "Not the 'piss on the stairs gag' again…" he thought, as he looked down. He was mortified to see that he was standing in a puddle of blood. Fighting a quick wave of unexpected nausea, he climbed the stairs, following the trail of blood. He poked his head through the hallway, and managed a stiff "hello" before continuing down the hall. There were a few people on the far end of the west wing hall, just standing there. He could only see their silhouettes, but he knew there was something not right about the atmosphere.

"_What's going on here?"_

He heard a faint moaning coming from within many of the rooms, which seemed to be pretty normal, but there was something that bothered him about all this, that he couldn't quite put his finger on. He rounded the final corner, and saw someone who he recognized as his friend, Jimmy who only lived a few doors away. His back was to Devon, and he was looking out into the streetlights below.

"Hey, Jimmy, what's up?"

He got no response.

"Jimmy, you okay man?"

With each step, he began to become more nervous about confronting him.

"Jimmy."

He made no effort to turn to face Devon, but Devon could hear his jaw begin to work and smack loudly.

"Hey," Devon put his hand on his shoulder, but was disgusted to feel it shift beneath his touch, as if there were only liquid between the skin and bone. Jimmy slowly began to turn around, and Devon was horrified at what he saw. In the dim lighting, Devon could make out ragged flesh that hung off his cheekbones, exposing the aforementioned with a glistening white. His eye sockets were wide and it appeared as if his eyelids had been torn off, while the pupils were clouded over. They appeared to be almost as white as the rest of the eye itself. His entire body was covered in blood, some his, some not. Devon took a step back in fear. Jimmy's hands reached for Devon's neck, the limp flesh clinging to the bone. There was a deep gash in his left arm, and Devon could see the flexing muscle and ghostly white structuring beneath it. He slowly stumbled towards Devon, jaws working. He let out a soft, bloodthirsty moan.

Devon couldn't speak. He tried to yell, but he lacked the willpower. Or the courage.

He took a few more steps backwards, and turned and broke into a full sprint in the opposite direction, only to hit another person from behind. The impact managed to get a yell out of Devon, as he looked and saw that this person almost literally had no face. It had been torn off, or eaten off, Devon wasn't sure. As the faceless man fell to the ground, his desperate hands grabbed at Devon, needing nothing worse than to take him down with him. He grabbed the short sleeve of Devon's sweater, tearing it when he pulled away. He dashed to his room, and threw open the door, and he saw his roommate, Edward standing in the darkness absently. As he turned on the light, Edward slowly turned towards him, and it was then that Devon finally saw the extent of the transformation. "Oh my God…" He cried as his former friend began to wobble towards him. He pushed the undead away, his palms sinking somewhat into the rotting flesh. The zombie groaned in aggravation, as it hit the floor with a sickening 'thud.' He ran to the phone, and began to dial '911,' before realizing that all the phone line was dead. His mind working frantically, he grabbed his baseball bat in the corner of his room, before taking one last look at Edward with sad, confused eyes, before slamming the door behind him. He sprinted down the stairs again, this time to the second floor, and to Lori's room.

****

"What the…?!" Eric yelled in surprise as his decaying roommate stood above his bed, jaws clenching together, ready to feast. Eric kicked him hard in the stomach, which knocked the undead roommate over with a groan. Slowly it began to awkwardly pick itself of the floor, when Eric kicked it in the face, and it fell back to the floor again. He fumbled with the door lock as he cursed loudly. The monster began to slowly pick itself off the ground, as Eric finally managed to fling the door open and escape from the room. He made a mad dash for the exit to his dorm, Bailey hall, dodging all the wandering murderers in the hallway. His mind was not working anymore; survival was all he could think of. The fear was intense, panic completely consuming his soul. With that, he broke out of the dorm, and stopped running on the front steps, clueless as to what to do next. His mind tried its hardest to think rationally and logically, but nothing came. He couldn't fight the urge to just run away. Finally, he sprinted off the steps, towards the unmarked white vans that surrounded the university.

****

The beats got louder and louder. Without end. She knew what was here. She knew what she had to face. She strapped on her boot knife, and straightened her belt. She took a deep breath as she walked to the dresser.

"_I hoped I'd never have to use you again. I'm sorry."_

She pulled out an elaborate handgun from beneath her undergarments, along with a couple of clips. She held the length of the gun against the side of her face, the same way a mother might caress a child, as she loaded it.

"_God help me."_

She knew this time she would be shooting people she knew, laughed with, sat in class with, cared about. Loved. This time, the psychological scars would cut deeper than before.

With impressive force, she kicked down her door, knocking the two undead away. With a firm and resolute stride, she walked down her hallway, towards the masses of the shells of people she once knew. Three sharp gunshots rang through the air.

"_Jeff. Julie. Michael."_

Two more.

"_Ariana. Lynn."_

Each shot, clean and painless. Straight through the brain. The unfortunate did not suffer.

"_At least it's better than the alternative."_

A tear rolled down her cheek before she quickly wiped it away. She heard screaming coming from down the hall, before it was cut short by an unexpected demise. In the back of her mind, Claire knew that it was someone she had known as well. In response, she quickened her pace to a run, pushing aside the slow and dense remnants of her friends. She kicked open Bethani's door, and pointed the barrel around her room, shooting Beth's roommate, Erica, right between the eyes.

"Beth! Are you here?"

She heard crying in the closet. She saw the front of the closet door, and saw nail marks and bite marks in the wood, where Bethani's friend had tried desperately to get to her. She opened it, and saw Beth cradled in the corner, tears steaming down her delicate face. She looked up at Claire as fresh, new, slightly different tears formed.

"Claire? Oh, thank God you're here!" Beth leapt up and wrapped her arms around her neck, nearly crushing her.

"I'm really glad you're safe, Beth…" Claire looked for the right words to tell her, but none came. Bethani released her grip on Claire, and allowed her to continue. "Let's save all these hugs and stuff for when we get out of this, okay?" Beth nodded silently, still wiping away tears. 

"What's going on, Claire…?" Beth said sheepishly.

"I'll tell you when we get everyone together, okay?"

Beth nodded, confused, but unwilling to ask further questions at the moment. They walked out of her room, and towards the glass double doors. A female form pounded at the glass, smearing blood on the glass. As if it had sensed the two girls behind it, the figure turned around. The Resident Advisor for the second floor. Claire raised her gun slowly, as the undead woman looked at the end of the barrel, completely puzzled. Claire pulled the trigger. The bullet went through the woman's forehead, and exited out the back, shattering one of the glass doors. Claire looked down at the figure, now twitching in a pool of blood on the ground. Somewhere inside, she was dying, too, with each shot that stopped the life functions of her friends. But she would push those feelings down and away, until they got through this. Beth stared wide-eyed at the smoking gun Claire held in her hand, registering it only in one part of her brain. The trauma was affecting her ability to even think. Beth shook her head, in an attempt to clear out her consciousness. She opened the broken door, and exited Maynard dorm. She and Claire began to walk towards the center of the campus, and her friends' meeting place. The Centennial square.

"_Please be okay, everyone."_

****

Jim wiped his eyes as he pulled into a gas station in the town of Amarillo, Texas. He stopped at a pump, and began pumping gas. He leaned against his blue Ford truck, and reflected on his situation.

"_You better not be dead down there, Devon. If you are, then it's going to suck being down there a lot more without having you around. Come on Jim, maybe you're just being paranoid. Maybe nothing's happened down there, yet. Yeah, that's bullshit."_

Jim took a cigarette out of his pack and lit up; something he knew was very unsafe to do around gasoline. But then, Jim Bowman was one not to worry about such things.

"_Nah, you're not dead. Just wait. We'll meet up, and then we'll kick some zombie ass. Just don't make me do it alone."_

Jim glanced at the high-powered shotguns and handguns that he had resting on the seat. He then glanced down and looked at his watch.

"_Damn, Twelve-thirty. It'll probably be almost four by the time I get down there."_

The pumps safety latch switched off, and the handle snapped back with a dull thud. He put it back on the pump, and threw his cigarette to the ground, as he went in to the store.

****

"This way!" Devon screamed as the staircase to the north exit of the dormitory was blocked by at least twenty of the affected people. He ran down a long, dimly lit hallway that ran the entire length of the dorm. Lori followed closely behind him, clutching her bleeding shoulder. Every couple of seconds or so Devon looked behind him to make sure that she was still there, and that no one else had attacked her. He turned his back one second to look into another of his friends' rooms, and one of the horrible beings lunged at her and bit her shoulder, tearing a large piece of flesh and muscle with it. It turned out it was the very friend he was looking for. He had struck it on the side of the face with his bat, caving in the zombie's cranium and spraying stagnate blood over the bat, and his hands. He had apologized to her for his mistake at least ten times, his voice was frantic over her screaming. She was still whimpering, even now, and it attracted the frenzied creatures, as if they could sense the fresh blood.

"Devon, just leave me! I'll get you killed!"

He didn't hear her. Devon hit one in the chest, slamming it against the wall, as he was balancing himself for another attack, another female zombie that was residing inside the adjacent room lunged at him, grabbing the barrel of his bat. It flung him against the wall, the impact dizzying his vision for a second or two. The astounding power of the clumsy freaks amazed him, and scared him. He swung the bat away from the clutches of the zombie, yanking off its arms at the elbows. He looked at the arms still gripping the bat, and at the zombie, it seemingly confused at losing its body parts. Devon took the time to grab Lori's good arm and bolt down the rest of the hallway, to the second set of stairs. He looked down the staircase, the hollow chamber echoing with the growling sounds of the undead masses. The lights flickered on and off, and he wondered how much power they would have before everything was dark. The thought of dealing with these things in darkness was unimaginable to him.

"They're everywhere…" He stated in disbelief. "We can't make it here, either."

"Devon…" Lori whimpered, as she pointed to the shuffling shadows of maybe ten to fifteen more zombies falling against the wall, wandering down the hall towards them, desperately needing them. The shadows were long, showing that they were still some distances away, but that wouldn't last long. The first of the zombies in the stairway turned towards the two frightened students, and began to amble up the steps after them. It had lacked the coordination to stay on its feet, however, and fell on both of its arms. An audible snap of breaking bone was heard, yet the zombie, seemingly unfazed, began to slowly crawl up the steps, putrid saliva escaping its lips as it looked up at them longingly.

"We're trapped Devon…" Lori said in defeat. Devon tensed in response, and gritted his teeth, knowing that his death was going to be particularly gory and painful. He gripped his bat with both hands, smashing the head of the first zombie coming up the stairs. "Well," he yelled, "we've got to try to get through them then!"

"There's too many!"

"I don't know what else to do!"

Lori's eyes lit up. "No! I know! The fire escape on the roof!" By this time, the first of the zombies from the hall was visible, someone Lori recognized as Rachel, who was once regarded to be one of the most beautiful girls on the campus. Now, that beauty was gone, an eye dangling out of its socket, her once full, and lush lips had been ripped off for the most part revealing bloodstained, yellow teeth, and her angelic, milky skin now a sickening shade of brown and grey. Her intestines hung from her abdomen, yet she seemed not to care, or notice for that matter. The only things that mattered to her anymore were the two conscious people standing in front of her. She moaned with anticipation, and Lori shuddered violently.

"The door is locked up there, though!" The lights flickered off, and all was dark for a couple of seconds, as fear welled up inside Devon. Like a blessing from God, they lit up the area once again, and went back to the now usual flickering state.

"Geez…" He was tired, the adrenaline beginning to run thin in his body. "Okay…let's try it anyway."

The two ran up the short flight of stairs, where there were no zombies yet, thankfully. The both of them pressed hard against the door, and Lori yelped in pain, due to her shoulder.

"Are you okay?!"

"I can't do it, Devon! It hurts too much!" Lori twisted up her face in despair. The zombies began to filter in from the hall now, almost too many to count. Thirty of them, maybe forty were filing from the hall and lower staircase, all coming for them. The first of them started up the first step, only a mere ten feet away.

"Stand back!" Devon yelled, as he began to swing the bat near the locking mechanism. The lights flickered on and off again, contrasting between the near blinding light of the white stairway, and the near-pitch darkness of the night. A small red light would turn on in the darkness, giving just enough light to see Lori's small frame, her head moving nervously from the staircase to her best friend. Devon could hear an electronic buzzing from inside the door; no doubt it was the electricity charging the magnetic holds of the lock. Devon decided that when the lights were off, that was his best time to break open the door. He struck the door again and again, denting the light material, but otherwise doing nothing to it at all. He looked back and saw a huge pile of shifting bodies only some five feet away. Luckily, the desperate forms were frenzied, clawing and climbing over each other to reach their prize at the top of the staircase. It impeded their progress substantially.

Devon continued to beat the door. The lights flickered off again, much to Devon's mixed emotions, and he hit the exit with increasing fury and panic. 

"Hurry it up, Devon…"

When he had exhausted himself, the door still remained intact. "It still won't open!" He screamed.

Lori's whimpering had regressed to short and shallow breaths. She began to hyperventilate, the darkness and the situation getting the better of her in the form of short, ragged gasps. "They're…almost here…Devon…Hurry…" The words were labored and weak.

Devon listened to the flowing electricity still powering the lock in the darkness, and he was confused. He stared at the little red light for a couple of seconds, before it dawned upon him. "Just a bit longer!" He yelled, not necessarily to Lori, as he smashed the little white box the light belonged to. Sparks showered the two in a blinding flash of light, before returning to the vacant darkness. The sound of the clamoring zombies was deafening, the stench of death nearly overwhelming. Devon could hear the slaps of flat palms hitting the surface the two survivors were standing on. One icy hand gripped Lori's leg with crushing power, and began to use it to pull up its following bulk. Lori instinctively kicked at the unseen terror, and backed against the side of the door, sucking in air wildly.

__

"Much more of this," Devon thought, _"and it's all over…"_ He hit the white box once more, and satisfied that it was no longer operational, he began to slam against the battered door. "Lori!" He yelled as he hit the door again with his weight. "Stay with me! Let me know you're still okay!" She didn't answer outside of her wild gasping, and he repeated his words. "Come on, Lori! Don't do this, we're going to make it! We're going to-!" He gasped audibly as he felt something tugging forcefully on his pant leg, threatening to pull him down into the masses below. He struck the door once more, and it flew open, the fresh outside air rushing up to meet him. He landed hard against the small pebbled surface of the outside roof, the small rocks digging into his left arm. "Lori, come on!" He screamed. He couldn't see her, as he was halfway outside, and he began to fear for her life. All she could hear were her desperate attempts to breathe.

"Lori! Out the door! Now!!" He cried to her, as he heard her shuffling body slowly moving towards the outside portal. She tripped over his form, still laying on the ground, before frantically rolling away from him, managing to hit him on the side of the face with her fist as she did so. He scrambled to shut the door, not satisfied until he heard the sound of the door latch catching. Almost immediately, he heard the sounds of scratching coming from the other side of the door, along with the muffled otherworldly groans. Devon knew the door wouldn't last. From the light of the distant street lamps, he saw Lori's curled form on the ground, shivering wildly, her fingers desperately trying to cover her ears.

He moved his jaw around in an attempt to subside the pain, as he leaned to her, putting a hand on her undamaged shoulder. She shrugged it away violently, with a panicked shriek.

"Lori…It's me…We're okay…" He placed his hand on her again, and she still flinched, yet made no effort to pull away. He dropped his bloody weapon on the ground next to him, and took her into his arms, in an attempt to comfort her. She was unresponsive at first, but eventually, she wrapped her trembling arms around him, and began to weep bitterly into his chest. He rocked her slowly, repeating the words 'it's okay, it's okay' over and over again. His eyes never left the vision of the beaten door. He waited for the moment when it busted back open, and then the nightmare would start all over again. He slowly began to lose himself to the recesses of his mind, his consciousness leaving the roof of Anderson Hall to go someplace safer, as his body stayed. There was a long silence between the two of them as Lori slowly began to recover from the incident.

"Devon," she finally said. When he did not answer, she repeated it again. "Devon?"

"Yeah," his voice was strained and tired. It felt to Lori that she was almost holding him up.

"Are we okay, Devon?"

There was another silence. She was about to call his name again before he answered. "I…I don't know." Devon slowly turned to her, with an unreadable and distant expression in his eyes. She hugged him again, and his eyes turned to the bottoms of her pants, and the bloody handprints that had lined them from the knees down. He merely stared, and said nothing. Words took too much effort for him. It was too hard to find the words he wanted to use. He was silent, simply staring at her bloodied pants. For a minute, it seemed to him that he forgot what he had just been though. More likely he was in the process of trying to forget.

"Thank you, Devon, for not leaving me."

Another silence.

"So," Lori continued, "where now?"

He breathed in deeply, not taking his eyes from her pants. Finally, he blinked his eyes a couple of times, his mind seemingly hurtling towards the situation at hand once again. His body jumped, as if awakening from a bad dream.

"Are you okay, Devon?"

"I…I think so."

"Are you sure?"

He stared at the door again, noticing its vibrations from the force being exerted on the other side. "No." It was a simple statement, but he couldn't lie about how he felt.

Fear began to rear up inside her heart again, so she asked her previous question again, in attempts to give her something to think about besides the other side of the door. "Where do we go from here?"

He forced himself to think. "I…I think we should go to the Centennial Square. We always said that if something big happened here, and we couldn't find each other, we would go to the Centennial Square."

"What if no one else is there?"

He frowned at the possibility, and opened his mouth for some time before actually speaking, his trouble-laced words defying his fear. "Then we find them."

He picked himself and Lori up, and reached down to get his bat. He walked over towards the fire escape on weak knees. He lazily climbed over the side of the building, his feet touching the first step.

"Come on," he called over to Lori, "let's get out of here."

___________________


	3. Chapter Three

Familiar Hauntings

Chapter Three

Bobbye was thankful she had been outside. It gave her room to run from the people she used to know, the people that were now trying to kill her. She was normally quite rational when it came to most things, but she wondered to herself how one is to remain rational when all her friends die, only to pick themselves back up and stumble after her. Her friends were no longer the people that she had befriended through tennis, class, or a friendly game of pool. These people had committed horrible acts right in front of her eyes. Her jogging partner, Miranda, had walked up to her boyfriend from behind, and put her hands around him in an intimate embrace, only to have him tear off one of her appendages and turn on Miranda herself, silencing her only by tearing her throat out. Bobbye shivered with the memory of only an hour or so ago. The way his eyes were devoid of life, and how he was unaffected by her shrill screams, shattering the humid air. Bobbye couldn't say anything. Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped at the ensuing gore. And then she ran. She ran with no destination in particular, if only to tire herself so she wouldn't have the energy to fear anymore. She finally ended up at the Centennial Square, where she hoped her friends would soon meet her. Her blood froze in her veins as she thought of her friends turning into one of those creatures. Would they come after her? Would she die the same way Miranda did? It didn't seem possible for her to meet a fate like that. But at least she was outside. If she had been in one of the dorms, it probably would have been much worse. Hundreds of these people in such a small area. No way anyone could have made it out.

She wondered where they were when it began. Her friends. 

__

"Eric wouldn't die like the rest of these people had, would he? He's really smart; he probably got away before things got really bad. Demi's pretty small, but she's strong-willed. Maybe she's still okay."

Bobbye shook her head, sadly.

__

"Demi is probably dead. Unless Devon went to get her. He probably got Lori first though. But Devon is sort of the heroic type around the people that are close to him. Which means if he's with either of them, he could be dead. That means that Demi or Lori probably would be too."

She leaned on a statue of the founder of the university, and rested her elbow on it. He put her hand on the side of her head, and looked around her cautiously before closing her eyes.

__

"What if they're all dead? What would I do then? There's no way I can make it out of here alone, I know that much. Maybe someone's still out there. Maybe someone can find me."

Almost as in response, she opened her eyes and saw two figures walking towards her. She tensed, ready to run again, but one of the figures excitedly put her hand into the air and waved it around wildly. She strained to see the girl's face in the distance, but it appeared to be Bethani's small figure. As the two girls walked under a lamplight, she saw the orange American Eagle shirt Bethani was wearing, and the red leather biker's jacket that belonged to Claire. She returned the wave to the two girls.

Bobbye smiled.

****

"What do you _mean_ it's not in your orders!?" a very exasperated Eric, still dressed in a plain white shirt and sleep sweats, yelled to a nearby camouflaged soldier. Eric was on the perimeter of the campus, a mere fifteen feet away from a few of the numerous white trucks that circled the school. However, the drawn M-16s of a group of soldiers prohibited him from getting any closer.

"You heard us the first time, sir!" The masked soldier held the gun steadily sighted on Eric's chest.

"Would you at least tell me what's going on, then? What's with _dead people_ wandering around my campus?!"

"That's confidential, _sir."_ The soldier began to grow tired of the questions.

"Well, at least help us get rid of them!"

"Sir, I've already told you, it's not in our orders!" The soldier pulled the safety off the gun, and Eric heard it audibly click. "If you don't leave now, I'll open fire. _Sir."_

Eric stared coldly at the man, before the bold words of the firearms caused him to slowly back away. Without saying another word, Eric turned his back on the men, and slowly walked away. He half expected the men to open fire on him for the trouble.

"_Who are these guys?"_

Now at a loss for what to do, he began to jog towards the Centennial Square.

****

Despite the situation and horror at hand, it was quite a happy reunion. Everyone hugged and expressed their joys that they were okay. Claire was firm and silent, as she normally was, but was still visibly joyful that her friends were still alive. She had looked at Devon's bat he carried, and saw the coagulating blood covering much of it. She raised her eyebrows, quite impressed with how he had fought the zombies. However, she had seen Lori's shoulder, and while she wasn't positive how it had been hurt, the answer was obvious.

Lori and Bethani cried together. Each held the other, and not many words were expressed, only the remains of residual adrenaline. Lori had told the group what she and Devon had gone through escaping the dormitory, and what had happened to her shoulder. It appeared Claire had wanted to tell her something, but refrained.

Bobbye was for the most part silent, only speaking to say what had happened to her, and of the untimely demise of her friend, Miranda. Never one to show much emotion, Bobbye held many of the fears and feelings inside, which was something she had always done. The way she had figured, this situation would be no different.

However, Devon didn't share in much of the rejoicing. He was being eaten by his own worry inside for Demi. She still wasn't back, and the lump in his throat grew larger each minute that passed. The other members were asking where Eric was, as well as Demi, but while Devon was worried about Eric as well, he was pretty sure that he'd be fine. But Demi, however…that was a different story, and Devon felt like he was about to fall apart. He only prayed that Eric was with her. His heart dropped when Eric arrived--without Demi.

"Eric!" Lori cried and wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her too, if only half-heartedly. He had been emotionally spent, and the dark bags under his eyes accentuated this.

"Hey Lori," he said, genuinely relieved, even if his voice wouldn't allow him to express it completely. "I'm glad you're safe."

"I take it you haven't seen Demi, Eric?" Devon's voice was passing, yet urgent. In response, Eric shifted uneasily.

"You mean she's not here?"

"No, I…I uh, was hoping she was with…you."

His face sank as he heard the recent news. "Oh man…"

Devon knew that Eric had liked her as well, but figured that if she had to either be alone or with Eric, he wanted her with Eric. Devon nodded silently, and spoke. "Then I'm going to McCulloch to find her."

"No, Devon, it's nuts in the dorms. Don't even try." Bethani demanded.

"I've got to…I can't let her…die."

"Devon," Claire's voice was monotone and devoid of emotion, as if she didn't even know the young man she was speaking to. "If she's in there, she's dead. I'm telling you. You can't hold out in the dorms for long. These things sense out living people."

"What am I supposed to do? Maybe she's still in her room! I can help her!" He yelled to her.

"If she was in her room, then she's dead now!" Claire yelled back at him, slightly annoyed at his lack of logical reasoning. She softened a little before continuing. "Okay, now listen. Demi's a really smart girl. She knows how to look out for herself. I think there's a chance that she's okay. I mean that. You just have to listen to me on this. I've…" She hesitated, knowing she was about to bring up the stabbing pains of her past. "I've been though this…before."

Eric's eyes widened, as did the others'. "You _what?! _What do you mean, you've done this before?"

She closed her eyes to stop all the memories flooding back at once. "I've dealt with zombies and all this stuff before."

"What happened…?" Beth said softly, mortified that this had happened on more than one occasion.

"Well, do you all remember the nuclear meltdown of that secret facility in Raccoon City?"

"Yeah," Devon cut his eyes, unsure as to what she was getting at.

"Well, that was no nuclear meltdown. More like a nuclear assault by our own country."

"Our own country bombed our own city?" Bobbye stared in disbelief. "How do you know this?"

"Because I was there." For the first time since her arrival at school, Claire began to break the defenses she had built around herself, finally allowing her friends to see her for what she really was.

"You're kidding." Eric's eyebrows raised, and he stumbled through his next words. "W, well, what-what happened down there?"

"This happened." She said plainly. "Zombies were originally created by two specific viruses, the T-Virus, and the G-Virus. The G-Virus was the successor to the T-Virus, due to the fact that it had a faster mutation rate than the T-Virus. These viruses were the ones that caused the downfall of that town."

Bethani shook her head in disbelief.

"The government figured the only way to cover up the huge outbreak was to destroy the entire town. I had escaped just prior to that on a train with a cop named Leon Kennedy and a little girl named Sherry Burkin. Afterwards, I had investigated the company behind the outbreak, Umbrella Incorporated."

Bobbye chuckled slightly, "Figures. Should have known that company didn't get as rich as it is with only selling plant fertilizer and test tubes."

"After working on the S.T.A.R.S. team with a few select people, and my brother Chris, I was captured and taken to an island of Umbrella's. Their past followed them there, too, and the entire place was overrun by zombies and all sorts of other mutations of the virus."

"Wow, Claire…I'm really sorry." Lori's tone was soft and sympathetic. However, Claire made no effort to notice.

"Well, I eventually got off that island, too, and headed back to Europe to finish my investigation. We eventually destroyed the Headquarters of Umbrella, but not before finding that there are at least three other branches of Umbrella, all capable of working independently. One in Chicago, Illinois, one in London, and another in Brazil."

"So," Devon concluded, "I'm assuming it's the Chicago branch doing all this to the campus, right?"

"I would think so."

"But," Devon said, slowly. "Is there any cure for these people? I mean, the G-Virus has been around awhile, right?"

"Well," she said pessimistically, "The G-Virus has a cure, but I'm not sure that this is the G-Virus. As fast as it affected these people, I'm thinking it may be the variation on it."

"Which is?" Bobbye implied.

"Well, there's not an actual name for it, yet. It's been known as the Delta Virus though."

"What's that?" Lori asked.

"It's a drastic mutation of the G-Virus. That's really all you need to know. That, and there's no cure for it at the moment."

"But that still doesn't explain why they picked to release it on this school!" Devon's thoughts began to wander back to Demi, and he began to grow uneasy again.

"I don't really know," Claire said quietly. "Maybe they want me, or someone else in the school, I'm not sure. It could just be an experiment to see the virus outside of the laboratory. There's no telling."

Eric was about to speak again, when the sounds of breaking glass began to sound from Anderson Hall. The group of friends turned their attention to its direction, and saw numerous zombies pouring out of one of the room windows.

"Oh no!" Bethani cried.

"They're going to be everywhere before long." The lump in Devon's throat got larger. "I've got to find Demi. I have to." Desperation began to seep into his tone. "Please understand, please. I…I have to find her. I wouldn't be able to take it if she was…" He couldn't finish as his eyes started to sting.

"I'll look, too." Eric said, as Devon gave him a sharp look, to which Eric returned. The rivalry was still there between the two of them, even in light of the dire circumstances.

"Don't check the dorms, I'm telling you." Claire stood by her argument with Devon earlier. "You'll die in there, especially with only a baseball bat as a weapon. They'll overwhelm you."

Devon was quiet for a long while, as his mind raced furiously to think of where else she might be.

"I'll look for her in the art hall." Eric said, knowing that it was the closet building to her dorm. He would find her before Devon did. He wouldn't lose to him with such high values at stake.

Devon clenched his jaw and gritted his teeth. "Then I'll take the Computer building. Who wants to come with me?"

"I will," Lori said quickly. "You already got me out of Anderson, I'll keep my luck with you."

"I'll go with Eric." Bobbye stated in a very plain, all-business tone. To Bobbye, this was just another game, like in tennis or basketball. The only difference was the stakes were higher.

"I'll stay with you, Claire." Bethani clung to her like a small child with a new object of affection. "I'll go wherever you go."

"No," Claire replied, to Beth's shock. "I do my best work when I don't have to worry about anyone else.

"Are you sure that's safe, Claire?" Devon grew concerned at the thought of one of his close friends braving the campus alone.

"I have this, I'll be okay." She help up her fifteen round semi-automatic pistol, which seemed to glow in the light of a nearby lamppost. 

"Well," Eric commented dryly, "I was going to ask why you would have a gun at school earlier, but I guess you've already answered that."

"I never leave home without it." She seemed eager to begin. Eric thought maybe a bit too eager. "Well, I'm headed to the police station to look for you guys some ammunition to fight with. A word of warning to you all. If you come across any more zombies, _run._" She glanced at Devon. "Don't be stupid and try to fight them, just run. They're strong, but slow." She started to walk away from the group, towards the small police station on the corner of campus. "Be careful," she said, not bothering to turn around, "I want to see all of you again."

The remaining friends watched her for a while, before talking amongst themselves again.

"Well, I'll go with you then, Devon." Bethani looked at him with her big brown eyes. They were the same eyes that Devon always had a hard time turning down. Those eyes always seemed to get their way.

"I don't mind, Beth. Come on."

"Well," Eric smirked at Devon, "we'll find her. Don't worry about that."

"We'll see." Devon stared at him for a few seconds, before turning around and beginning to walk to the Computer Building. Eric began to do the same, before Devon's voice caught his attention. "Hey Eric, meet me outside the Art Building in half an hour from now. One-fifteen. Okay?"

"Sure," he shrugged before he and Bobbye began to walk away. The other three left as well, hoping it wasn't the last time that they'd see their friends.

___________________


	4. Chapter Four

Familiar Hauntings

Chapter Four

"Wow, Eric, what's the deal with you and Devon?" Bobbye asked in a half-attempt to get conversation rolling to help her forget she may be dead before sunrise. They were walking through the parking lot for Bailey Hall, and the Art building was now only a hundred yards away.

"Pssh, he feels threatened by me, because he likes Demi too." Bobbye couldn't help but catch a slightly bitter tone in his voice.

"I don't know about that comrade. It kind of sounds to me like you're the one that feels threatened."

Eric laughed out loud at the comment. "Nope, not me. I can't help it that she would rather spend her time with me. I mean, Devon's known her for years, and nothing's ever come out of it. But now, she's just as close to me, so she has to feel _something._"

"Bold words…"

They stopped in their tracks as a vacant zombie shuffled past the two of them from behind. It had been behind a truck in the parking lot, and apparently, the commotion had stirred it. However, it didn't seem to take notice of the two, and it stumbled past them, thirty feet away. Eric and Bobbye waited until it was out of range before they started walking again.

"Those things scare the piss out of me…" Eric shuddered.

"Why didn't it come after us? I thought Claire said it could sense us."

"Well, maybe it only smells blood. You know, like a shark or something."

Eric noted that it was also headed near the Art Building, along with a few other zombies. "Either that, or it's after someone else…" Eric's thoughts flashed to Demi.

"Let's go." The two began to run, this time, catching the zombie's attention as they ran by, yet it was much too slow to catch the two survivors. They ran across a street, dodging a few slower moving undead, before arriving on the sidewalk in front of the building. As they turned to face the way they had just come from, they saw many zombies filing out of windows in Bailey hall, also coming towards the Art Building.

Eric shook his head. "Wow, there's so many of them…To think that they were our friends a few short hours ago."

"They're all coming this way," Bobbye noted, blocking out the truth of Eric's words. "Maybe we should have let Devon have this one."

"No, we'll be fine." Bobbye knew that Eric was a lot like her in the sense that he hated to lose. He hated to admit defeat.

"Well, comrade, just don't do anything stupid to get us killed."

"Heh, yeah. I'll find her though. There's no way that bastard's going to find her before me."

They walked towards the entrance of the building, Bobbye keeping a watchful eye on the closing hordes.

"I just hope we can get out before all these guys get here."

****

Claire entered the back door of the small police station. It would have taken too much effort to enter the front, as she only had seven bullets remaining on her. The entire zombified police force was standing out front, not looking at or doing anything in particular. It seemed every other member of the undead on the campus had a destination to reach, which was normally looking for remaining survivors to satisfy their bloodlust. She absently looked around the room for ammunition. It was rather unkempt for a police station, with files scattered messily on the secretary's desk thrown on top of filing cabinets. The room was almost claustrophobic, and she headed into the hallway to the smaller rooms. She shot the lock on the police chief's desk, rummaging around until she found another small nine-millimeter handgun, and a few clips. She inspected one of the clips and frowned. The style of the gun was different than hers and she wouldn't be able to reload it with this. Chances were, this was the standard handgun of this department. She put her gun in her holster on the side of her belt, and proceeded to load the newly found firearm. After she was satisfied that the room was empty, she left for the next one. 

She thought about the reunion with her friends from a short time ago. _"I didn't have the heart to tell her. Or Devon."_ She remembered what had happened to Lori's arm, and if it _was_ the Delta Virus they were dealing with, then she would join the ranks of the dead within an hour or so. No more than two. _"If Lori and Demi die, then he's not going to want to fight anymore."_ She sighed uneasily at the words in her mind. _"He's strong, but not THAT strong."_

She walked into the next room, and found two more handguns on a coffee table, along with the holsters they were carried in. She checked the two guns for ammunition in the chamber. None. _"I'm going to have to watch him. Keep him safe."_ She thought about using another bullet to break open the desk, but just proceeded to hit it with the butt of the gun instead. After a short time, she was successful in breaking the lock. However, nothing was of use for her efforts. 

She walked to her the final room in the small hallway, and it too, was locked. She kicked it a few times, only to find that the door was quite well made in comparison to the rest of the small building. She pulled out her handgun, and shot the door lock. And again. Again. Three bullets left in her gun. She kicked at the door again. Nothing. She was startled to see that her commotion had stirred up a few of the cops from outside, and they started to beat on the windows, breaking them easily. _"They're getting stronger…"_ she thought. She was able to finally confirm what had affected these people. _"Delta Virus."_

The first of them began to filter in, bringing with them the putrid stench of death. She used one of her remaining bullets on one of the zombies trying desperately to get inside through the window. The bullet had found its target, burying directly into its brain. The zombie sputtered and kicked a bit before going limp. She noticed it was still wearing its gun in its side holster. She held her breath to protect herself from the odor, and walked over to it, and began to relieve it of the weapon. To her horror, the decaying man grabbed her forearm, and growled with ferocity as he brought it closer to his gnashing mouth. She released her breath in a cry of surprise as she dumped another round into the man's brain. He was weakened, but was still trying to tear the flesh off her arm. He jerked her to him, in an attempt to pull her arm from its socket, but it lacked the power anymore. Instead, he ended up pulling her out of the window with him, and she screamed as she went through the remaining glass, her clothes ripping and tearing as she was dragged outside again. She landed hard on the ground, and he fell on top of her. He only had one goal on his mind though, and he pinned her down, dripping hot saliva on the top of her leather jacket. Panic assembled inside of her, and she let loose the final bullet in her gun. Stale blood sprayed everywhere, as the zombie appeared to show an expression of pain. She was covered in the nauseating substance, and she felt as if she was going to vomit. To her amazement, the thing still didn't appear to be dead, it was weakly trying to overpower her still, although it was much to weak to put up a fight. She kicked it off of herself, and stood up, dripping in the dead man's bodily fluids. Her face twisted in anger, and she kicked the man hard in the head. It split open, revealing pieces of the rotting brain inside. The vacant expression on the man's face was fixed into a stare, just as if he were dying for the first time. 

__

"So," she thought _"The dead still see death coming for them."_ She mused for a minute, and looked around her surroundings. She was now outside, on the side of the building, and she was attracting attention. She quickly removed the man's holster and checked the chamber of the gun for bullets, as the first of the police force wandered over to her. It stopped roughly fifteen feet away, as if inspecting the scene, as if trying to figure out what had just happened there. Before he had made any advancement towards her, Claire fired a bullet directly into the center of its brain. It looked at her, slightly baffled as to what had just happened. She fired again, and he appeared to frown at her, still appearing to be confused. He raised his shaking hand near his face, and looked deep into her eyes before finally dropping to his knees, and then to the ground. A pool of blood trickled out on the sidewalk, and he was still.

At the sight of this, Claire had a glancing brush with a feeling she had never felt before when dealing with the undead. A part of her felt sorry for killing them. The expression that covered the man's face was similar to someone who had just been an innocent victim in a shooting. It was as if he hadn't deserved the bullets that had ended his life. On some form, were they still capable of logical reasoning? Claire frowned.

Three more policemen had filed out from the front now, and they had their arms outstretched toward the attractive girl, needing to kill and consume her. She raised the gun again, firing more shots into their heads.

__

"I may feel bad for them," she thought as she fired, _"but that's not going to stop me from doing what I need to do."_ The three undead piled up on top of each other, in a mound of bleeding, rotting flesh. Satisfied they were dead, she searched their bodies with a look of disgust, like a squeamish student dissecting an animal for Biology class. She came away with a few more clips. She looked at her inventory, laying everything out on the ground in front of her. She had acquired four new nine-millimeter handguns, and eight clips. She stuffed the clips in her pockets, and did her best to place the numerous holsters on her body.

__

"This'll have to do for a while," she thought as she began to walk back towards the Centennial Square once again.

****

"Sir, we've been hearing gunshots on the campus for the past half-hour or so," a masked soldier stated to a man wearing a grey, three-piece business suit. His black tie complemented his eyes, which seemed to be nearly as dark. His wide jaw moved as he started to speak.

"You think it's Redfield." His voice was low, menacing.

"W, well, yes sir. We do."

His eyes scanned the campus, looking for signs of intelligent movement. A nearby group of soldiers opened fire yet again on a few needing zombies, bringing them to death within seconds. "Well, our top priority is to get her out of the way before we conduct retrieval."

"Yes sir," the man said loudly, "You want us to use the Tyrant then, sir?"

The man was silent for a moment, his gaze calculating the area much like a chess master deciding his next move. The man cut his eyes for a moment. He was in the process of thinking, of weighing the outcomes of the decision. Finally, she spoke. "Yes. Bring him out."

With that, the soldier ran to a nearby truck, and radioed in the orders. Before long, the air would be filled with the flood of rotor noises, and the ground would be covered with the blood of the living. 

___________________


	5. Chapter Five

___________________

Familiar Hauntings

Chapter Five

The door shut loudly behind the three students, echoing throughout the cavernous hallway that was the entrance to the Computer Building. Their shadows were long on the tiled floor, reaching ahead of them into the darkness of the facility.

"Okay," Bethani said, "this is really dark. We can't see those things in the dark, you know."

"Yeah, I know." Devon's voice traveled the room before returning to its owner. "But I've got to see if I can find her." He fought uneasiness as he yelled her name, yet heard nothing. He walked into the room, listening intently to something other than his resounding footsteps. He knew there had to be something in here besides Lori, Bethani, and himself. His eyes slowly began to adjust to the area that didn't benefit from the lamplights outside. He yelled her name again.

"Demi!"

Nothing still.

Lori, still grasping the cloth Devon had used from his sweater to wrap her shoulder wound, walked over to the wall of the grand hallway, and tried flicking the lights on. They flickered weakly, and the room amplified the faint charging sound made by them. Still, it was adequate enough to see most of the room. It was a quite elegant hall; there were two staircases that had criss-crossed a giant brick column that raised to the second floor. The tiles were a beautiful white marble, its shine still able to reflect the dim lights of the ceiling. The walls were made of a beautiful deep red brick, and there were no visible corners in the room. Each of the hallways was tapered out, the mouths stretching over twenty feet at times. Giant dark bronze statues some ten feet tall were tucked near the walls, and behind the crossing stairways. A balcony was on the second floor, and it curved around the column with exquisite railing that was for the most part decorative. 

Devon turned back around to see what had turned on the light.

"This is really creepy in the dark, I had to see what was in here." 

Bethani walked to one of the hallways, peering down it, looking for signs of life. And un-life. "There's nothing in this place. No zombies or anything, it's like, really quiet."

"Let's start this way," Lori said, pointing to the west hallway. Devon looked down it, and then walked closer to the east hallway. He was trying to sense her, somehow. However, it was to no avail.

"Alright, let's go, girls."

The three disappeared into the hallway; the only audible sounds were distancing footsteps and the lost girl's name ringing into the night.

****

The campus was silent. No, maybe "silent" was the wrong word. Eerie, calm maybe. Like the calm before the storm. Claire stared at the lush green grass on the ground that just seemed to defy the madness that had been occurring. _"It only gets worse,"_ she thought, _"It always does."_ She continued to reflect on her thoughts as she walked around the side of the Psychology building. A few of the undead beings were shuffling around in front of her. _"What does Umbrella want with this campus?"_ She furrowed her brow. _"What would be so important to them that they'd kill thousands of innocent people to get?"_ she chuckled to herself out loud. _"Do I have to ask?"_ She trotted around the creeping zombies, easily evading them in the wide-open space. She rounded the other side of the Psych building. _"No matter what, I've got to put a stop to this. I can't let them keep doing this. When this is over, I'm re-enlisting with the S.T.A.R.S."_ In the distance, she heard more automatic fire, which she wrote off as the Umbrella employees having a few troubles of their own. _"If we could just get outside the school grounds…It'd be so much easier."_ Would they bomb this town like Raccoon City? Would the government do such a thing? Claire wasn't sure. She rounded a Ford Mustang GT in a parking lot, and caught sight of the Centennial Square. In the far distance, next to the Student Services building, she saw a small figure running around the side of it, before the decorative hedges obstructed her view. _"Is that who I think it is?"_ She yelled to the now out-of-sight figure.

"Demi!"

Claire quickened to a run as she tried to follow the individual. She was surprised to see the small girl re-appear, and then stop. From her distance, she could see the reddish hair that was the embodiment of Demi.

She began to run to Claire.

****

As soon as Eric and Bobbye opened the doors to the Art Building, they heard a girl's frenzied screaming and a couple of men yelling at someone, or something. The two took a quick glance at each other before Eric yelled out to them.

"Hello? Who's there? Demi?!"

All that could be heard from the girl were the words "help me" being repeated over and over again. The two cautiously made their way down the hallway, peering into each of the rooms before continuing. The rotting smell was thick here, and they knew that there were zombies nearby. The building was architecturally confusing; it was literally a piece of art itself. Low arches of brick supported the ceiling, and the hallways themselves were jagged and confusing, and the corners of the walls jutted out in irregular patterns. In the darkness, it almost disoriented Eric and Bobbye, as their hands passed over the wall, in an unconscious attempt to keep balance. However, Eric knew the building well, as he was majoring in Art. He looked into another of the classroom, to see a few undead stumbling over desks and falling to the floor in wet 'thuds.' The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end at the sight of the creatures. They were clumsy, stupid and slow, yet none of that mattered, as they were still able to kill a man in seconds. The cheek was ripped off one of the undead, and even in the near-darkness, Eric could make out the working yellow teeth. As he continued to walk by the door, it turned slowly to stare into his soul. It scared him to no end. He was about to call it off and turn around, even if there was someone in here that needed his help.

The cries were louder now, and Eric was able to pinpoint the location.

"Bobbye, they're in the lecture hall!"

"Are you sure?" she said, as he broke off into a sprint. She followed him.

He threw open the double doors, and yelled in surprise as the corner of one of them hit a zombie in the face, knocking out a couple of its teeth. It staggered back, and fell over one of the back seats of the amphitheater seating arrangement. The room was full of them, and they were evenly spaced throughout, but they were all scrambling towards the lecture space, where there were three guys and a girl there. The two guys were bleeding and weak, no doubt from fighting the threats, and the girl was being held by the other guy, whose job was apparently to protect her at all costs. One of the bleeding men ran towards another nearby zombie with a large hunting knife, stabbing it in the chest. The zombie seemed not to notice, and took the opportunity to grab the young man's shoulders, and moved in for the kill. However, the young man kicked the zombie's legs out from under it, and it fell over, its grip sliding down to the man's leg. He kicked to get away, but not before the undead had successfully managed to tear a large piece of flesh from his calf. The young man screamed in pain, and scrambled to safety, back to the guy and girl, who were frozen in their embrace, fear coating the both of them. The zombies stumbled down the aisles, some losing their balance and falling over chairs, but it wouldn't be too much longer before it was upon them. The other man had seen Eric and Bobbye at the back of the room, and was waving at them to come and help.

"Hurry!" he yelled, "Get down here and help us, please!"

Bobbye looked at the zombies in the room. There were about fifteen of them, and she thought that it wouldn't be too hard to escape. Without thinking, she ran down one of the aisles, kicking an unsuspecting zombie in the back, causing it to fall to the ground hard. She leapt over it, and in a track runner's stride, she was at the front of the lecture room with the injured fighters.

Eric stared in disbelief at what he had just witnessed. He knew Bobbye was tough, but he'd never thought she was so brave. Braver than he could be. He gritted his teeth and followed her, letting out a yelp of fear as he stepped on top of the zombie, still face-planted on the ground. He ran down the aisle towards Bobbye, and sighed relief as he also reached the front. From here, he saw the conditions of the men that were fighting. One was nursing his leg at the moment, gingerly touching it and then crying out in pain. The blood flowed freely from the wound, and it appeared it had snapped at least one of the tendons located behind the knee. The girl's eyes were wide with shock, and she was shivering uncontrollably, as was the guy holding her. The other man was cornered by three of the undead, and he knew that his time would come any second.

Bobbye turned away as the man was overpowered by the three bloodthirsty demons. He screamed with his last breaths, the sickening sound of living tissue being ripped from the bone. She looked over at the other man, who was not faring much better. He couldn't walk, and Bobbye knew that he would soon follow.

"Help me! Please!" The man reached up to Bobbye with a bloodstained hand. She looked around as if to call for help, and returned her gaze to the unfortunate individual. Not knowing what else to do, she took his hand, and patted it gently, the familiar feeling of sadness and loss surfacing to her consciousness once again. However, she remained stone-faced. She wouldn't show emotion. Not now.

"I'm sorry, comrade. I'm sorry."

The man looked into her eyes, his own full of what appeared to be deceit and betrayal. His eyes were pleading for her to help him, somehow, yet Bobbye told herself that there was nothing she could do. The zombie began to drag the man towards itself, and three others accompanied it as they literally began to tear apart the ill-fated teenager. He screamed in horror and despair as he was eaten alive.

"Eric, let's get these other two out of here, before they join them!" Bobbye could barely think. There didn't seem to be room for both horror and rationalism.

Eric's stare was locked on the remains of the other man. The zombies were literally hollowing the figure out. In Eric's mind, the figure being cleaned was no longer a man. A man retains some form of humanity, some recognizable trait that is others are able to relate to.

This was no longer a person.

__

"I could be next…"

Upon the realization, Eric's eyes grew wide with frenzied panic, and he ran to Bobbye, shaking her shoulders wildly. "We're going to die, Bobbye! We're going to die!"

His words tore into Bobbye's psyche, as she tried to shake the psychological plague that threatened to overtake her, as it had done Eric. "No!" she yelled, "We're going to make it out of this alive! Just keep cool, comrade!"

He didn't hear her, his eyes frantically looking around at the advancing army. "I've got to get out of here."

Bobbye looked behind, noticing a small door, she ran to it and opened it. It opened into a dark hallway, leading to an outside door. The green "exit" sign penetrated the relative darkness at the end of the hall, and she could see that it was clear of zombies. "Eric," she yelled, "over here!"

He didn't respond, his eyes were too busy darting about the room, trying to find the best way to escape. He didn't even know where Bobbye was anymore. In his mind, she didn't exist, and he didn't care. Nothing else existed, except the fifteen zombies that were out to silence him, and his own drifting consciousness. Without thinking further, he leapt into the seats in front of him, and scrambled up them, barely avoiding the rotting fingers of the undead. He screamed in horror as he gained momentum, losing more ground to his fear by the second. He clawed his way over more chairs to the center aisle, and made a mad dash for the double doors he had entered from.

"Eric, _no!_" She tried a last attempt to reach him; to touch his soul somehow before he made the biggest mistake of his short life. She knew what was going to happen, and she turned to the teenagers, still frozen on the speaking platform as a means of thinking about something else. "You two, _come on!_"

They didn't answer; they just stared ahead in horror, as the first of the zombies overtook them.

Eric ran towards the doors, taking a last look behind him, at the creatures bringing down the two immobile people on the stage. He absently opened the doors, and walked out of them, still looking behind.

He didn't even see the rotting faces overtake him.

Bobbye watched in horror as Eric walked right into them. One of the zombies grabbed him by the shirt, barreling him back through the swinging doors, and landing on top of him. He began to scream, but it was cut brutally short. She could no longer see his form under the huddle of bodies. It looked to her like a giant dogpile at a football game. A wave of nausea passed over her, and she closed her eyes to keep the feeling at bay. She turned to the guy and girl on the stage, and they were also falling victim to the undead. The two were still locked together, horror glazing over their eyes, blinding them from everything else. Much like Eric had done. They didn't even scream when the zombies began feasting. They didn't even flinch. As if they had already been dead. Another wave of sickness passed over her. She tried to shake it away, failing somewhat, and ran out the door and down the long hallway that led to the exit, fighting back tears that threatened to spill down her face for the first time since she could remember.

****

Demi's uniting with Claire had started a little rocky. Demi was very glad to see her, as was Claire, but they had never really been that close. Demi figured it was because their personalities were so similar. Claire was rather quiet normally, as was Demi, so the floodgates of conversation were never really released. But tonight, Claire was different somehow. She seemed to be more open towards Demi, and Demi took notice of this, and she began to follow suit. Before long, they were talking about everything they could think of. Anything to keep their minds from destroying them with the uncertainty and despair that came from the situation.

Claire had filled Demi in on what was happening here, and that her friends were all okay. Claire had told Demi about her past, about what she had experienced the past few years, at Raccoon City, Antarctica, and Europe. She told her everything that had been keeping her personality at bay, in an attempt to be freed from the demons of her past. Demi listened with intent to what Claire was saying. Close friends were something that was hard to come by for Demi. She wouldn't allow anyone to touch the recesses of her heart. The only reason she was so close to Devon was because he was so damn persistent. It was the same for Eric. They had a decent conversation going, despite the cautious glances around to make sure they were still relatively safe.

"So," Claire had started, "enough about me, where have you been hiding since this started?"

"Well, I was in my room for a while," Demi started, "then those things started knocking on my door. I got scared after I looked through the peephole at what they were, so I dressed and was going to call the police. The phones are dead, though."

"Yeah," Claire said, "They normally are when you _really_ need to use them."

"But then my roommate was a zombie too, and when she began to get out of bed, I knew something wasn't right. So, I climbed out my window, onto the tree just outside of it, and I just stayed up there for a while."

Claire smiled a little. "You were in a tree all that time?"

"I didn't know where else to go, but then I thought of the Centennial Square. I went by, and no one was there. Then you saw me, and…" she trailed off slightly, before finishing her sentence. "Here we are. I did a lot of thinking in that tree though. I think I have an idea as to why we weren't affected though, and everyone else was."

"Oh really?" Claire was genuinely intrigued. "What do you have?"

"Well, none of us ate anything from the café yesterday, right?"

"No, I had breakfast there," Claire pointed out.

"Oh…" Demi thought for a moment. "Well, it doesn't matter. None of us ate dinner then, right?"

Claire began to see what Demi was getting at. "You think Umbrella put something in the food. How clever of them."

"How else would they affect so many people on campus, and not us?"

Claire nodded to the younger girl. "You do have a point. We'll go and check it out after everyone gets back."

The new concept troubled Claire. _"Why would they intentionally infect so many people? They have to be researching on some level. Just like Umbrella to use innocents as lab mice. Is that it? What else are they wanting?"_

The two of them eyed a nearby zombie that seemed to not notice them. It wandered by aimlessly, and continued on its own agenda.

"I never would have thought this could happen." Demi shook her head sadly, and gestured towards the drunken figure. "I mean, you want excitement in your life, and it always seems to come, just never in the form that you want it to."

"I don't know…" Claire reflected, "I don't think I can take much more excitement. I mean, I have the Redfield name and everything, and we seem to be destined for excitement, but I can't keep doing this, you know?"

"Is that why you came here?" Demi sat on the grass, and began picking at it with her fingers. "To get away?" Claire followed her, stretching out, and lying on her side, propping her head up with her hand. If one looked at the way the two were sitting, it would have seemed nothing was wrong, and normal campus life was continuing.

"Yeah, partly, I guess." Claire looked up at the sky, at the beautiful stars still shining brightly in the sky. "I mean, if I had my way, I'd still be working with the S.T.A.R.S. and my brother, but he didn't want me to anymore."

"Why not? Did he not want you to get hurt?"

"Well, not really. I mean, he _didn't_ want me to get hurt, obviously, I mean, he's my brother." She continued. "But, I guess I had kind of outlived my usefulness for the time. Chris and Jill were pretty much in charge, Barry was a seasoned veteran, and knew all sorts of strategic implementations and stuff, and even Leon was able to hack into some of Umbrella's files. There just wasn't much more for me to do than to tell them what I had experienced, and what I had uncovered." She frowned, as she continued to look up at the stars. "If I would have known this would have happened though, I would have insisted on staying with the team."

"But you couldn't have known."

"Yeah, I know."

Demi's thoughts wandered to Devon. "So, he's okay then?"

"Who?"

"Devon."

Claire smiled again, her lips parting, showing her teeth from behind. Leon Kennedy had always complimented her smile. "Why don't you just get your feelings out in the open with him? You know how he feels about you, don't you?"

Demi frowned. "Yeah, I do. I don't know…I'm just…" she stopped herself in mid-sentence. The dawning realization crept up on her and took her completely by surprise. She now knew what it was she was feeling.

Claire had noticed to, and smiled with knowing approval.

__

"Is that what it is? Am I scared to let him know how I feel? Of what? What would I have to be scared of? I know how he feels, why would I be scared? …But I am, for some reason." 

Claire finished her thought for her, aloud. "You don't want to allow yourself to get that close to anyone, right?"

Demi was silent.

"Don't let that scare you. He really cares for you, and you'd be missing something wonderful, I'm telling you. I think I missed my chance, and now I kind of regret it."

Demi spoke, quietly, as if she were inferior to her thoughts at the moment. "With Leon?"

"Yeah. I never really let him know how I felt, and…" she sighed, "Leon's a great guy and all, but when he comes to women, he's…well, he's a little dense."

Demi laughed aloud at Claire's words, and it was the first time that Claire had heard her laugh out loud since she had arrived over a month ago.  
"So, don't miss out, Demi, I'm telling you. You'll really hate yourself for it."

The two were silent for a moment, before Demi had gathered her thoughts and feelings. She had decided that she would take a chance with Claire.

"Claire?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm…" The words were still hard to say for Demi, however. "I'm really…glad I got the chance to talk with you."

Her words touched something inside Claire's heart. Claire had always imagined this to be what a normal life would be like. Getting a chance to really bond with people, to know more about them than what shows on the surface. She couldn't remember the last time she had a talk like tonight. It made a part of her heart she didn't even know she had ache for more experiences like this.

"I'm really glad, too, Demi." The release of feelings had rejuvenated her, encouraged her. She felt good about tackling the crisis at hand, once again.

"We'll make it out Demi," she beamed knowingly, "I've done it before, and I'll do it again. We'll be okay."

Demi managed a weak smile, not completely sharing in the confidence. "I hope so."

Claire checked the number of bullets she had remaining in her handgun, and spoke. "I just hope everyone gets back soon. I'm getting bored of waiting for them."

****

Devon stormed out of the Computer building, with the two girls close behind. None of them had bothered to say anything to him for the past minute or so, his irate face had prevented it. He stopped in front of the building, not bothering to turn around to face his companions. He opened his mouth to speak, before shutting it again and shaking his head in another wave of fury. After standing there for a moment, he opened his mouth to speak again. This time, he succeeded. "We're supposed to meet Eric and Bobbye right about now, right?"

"Yeah," Beth said quietly, "I, I think so."

"Fine, let's go." Devon's voice was harsh, uncaring. He had explored the entire building looking for Demi, and she still was nowhere to be found. He would not accept the possibility that she may be dead, and because of that rejection, he grew more upset by the minute. He swung his arms wildly as he walked, accentuating the baseball bat waving in front of him. The girls managed to keep some distance behind. Lori was slowing, the pain of her wounded shoulder shooting electric daggers through her blood. She winced with each step, and Bethani braced her by putting Lori's arm around her shoulder, to hopefully prevent the pain of the circulating blood. They rounded the side of the facility, and the Art Building came into view, with a pacing Bobbye out front. One of her hands covered her face, and she continued to pace, walking about ten feet before turning around, and doing it over again. She heard commotion, and looked up to see a few zombies staring at her, growling their trademark growl. She stood straight, rigid, as the fight-or-flight sequence began to kick in again.

"Bobbye!"

She turned to see Devon striding towards her, and she trotted over to him.

"I'm, I'm…" She stuttered her words, visibly shaken. "I'm really, uh, glad to see you guys."

Devon eyed the three zombies shuffling towards them. "What's wrong, where's Eric?"

"They, they got him." She sighed and pointed to some of the rotting figures.

"No!" Lori cried, her wailing attracting even more attention.

Devon gritted his teeth behind his sneering expression. He wanted nothing more than to go and break open the heads of the people that killed his rival, and his friend. However, he refrained, knowing what the consequences might be. He shifted his gaze to the zombies, trying to grasp the fact that one of his better friends on the campus had just died. He thought of all the times they had wreaked havoc in prank wars, or about all the trash that they would talk in a competitive game of basketball. He shook his head in disbelief. He continued to stare at them, not moving. Saliva dripped out of their mouth and onto their ragged clothing, mixing with the fresh blood that stained the cloth. They appeared to be completely covered in blood and stringy flesh now, and it was not enough to individually make out the zombies anymore. They were no longer the people they had once known. Devon could not have recognized them if he had tried.

"Let's get out of here." Bethani said. "I want to leave, like right now." Urgency caught the end of her last sentence, and she began to back away, with Lori struggling to mimic her movements. It seemed Lori's legs didn't even seem to work anymore, the stabbing pains were almost too much for her to take. She felt as if she was going to pass out at any second. 

"Yes," Lori breathed, "Let's go."

The four began to walk back to the Centennial Square once again.

****

It was quiet at first, only existing as a presence that couldn't quite be perceived. But slowly, surely, the sound gained momentum, alerting the world to what was coming. Before long the slight pitter-patter in the distance would become a boisterous whirring of metallic blades and screaming engines. Even if one were looking for them, they would have a hard time finding them; they were as black as the night that encompassed them. The rotors sang together as a chorus of destruction as the three helicopters stopped over the university. For a minute, they just hovered, making no attempt to take further action. But then came a new sound from the internal compartments of the aircraft. It was the low noise of mechanical gears grinding against each other, straining to lower the bulky loads to the exterior of the helicopters. Again, they remained still, nothing moving but the blades that provided the lift. Three large containers were now situated below the transports. With a swift motion and a loud metallic 'clank,' the three payloads were dropped, and the helicopters slowly began to leave the area. The three containers were suspended in free fall, calm, fluid, serene. They hit the ground hard, two of them a cage of sorts that had sprung open on impact, the other, a hissing cylinder that emitted a type of white gas. The sound of the helicopters disintegrated into the darkness from which it came, having done the unspeakable deeds. 

Primal, reptilian creatures exited one of the cages. Out of it prowled three green skinned creatures, standing at four feet tall. Their slimy exterior glistened, their veins pulsing outside the flesh. On one of their hands were three large, seven-inch claws, each moving independently of the other, working tirelessly, eager to meet their next victim. Their yellow, lizard-like eyes scanned the area around them in jerking motions before the hunters bounded off into the recesses of the campus. 

The other cage was home to something that could only be described as a somewhat humanoid figure that appeared to be inside out. The muscular structure of the creature was on the outside of its body, the raw fibers working and bulging with each movement. The pinkish brain was also located on the outside, and it sat low on its head, right up to its brow, where its eyes might have been. It opened its mouth to reveal rows of sharp, serrated teeth, and a long, limber tongue. It let loose a deep-throated growl, before scurrying away, hugging the ground as it went.

Then there was the cylinder. The container was split apart, the carbon locks expanding the released gas that removed the two halves. A figure stood, over eight feet tall, its arms wrapped across its chest in a cross, its grey skull tucking its fists underneath it. Slowly, it looked up, as if awakening for the first time, and slowly looked at its surroundings, before taking the first steps. It brought the arms to its side, and with a mighty roar, the right hand erupted in a shower of blood and sinew. From its wake was a large scythe-like claw, over eighteen inches in length that traveled midway up the forearm. Its body heaved from the pain, and inspected its newly made instrument of death with childlike curiosity. It then returned its gaze to the landscape, and slowly began to walk forth, knowing completely its mission, and what it needed to accomplish.

___________________


	6. Chapter Six

Familiar Hauntings

Chapter Six

___________________

"Do you hear that?! Do you _hear that?!"_ Bethani's voice strained to overpower the churning rotors that were hovering directly over them. The remaining four hurried to the Centennial Square once again. Lori shrieked in pain and began to feel light-headed as Bethani shuffled her along with awkward strides. Thick agony surged through her veins as Lori fought back the strange urge to vomit. She was only vaguely aware of her surroundings; the pain encompassed all.

"What is that?!" Bobbye yelled, sprinting ahead to get a better view of the pulsing lights levitating in the sky.

"Maybe they're here to help?" Devon knew, however, this was not likely the case, and again, the tingling sensation of new fear showed its face in his mind. The four rounded the corner of the student resources and café building, and the Centennial Square came into view. The group saw two figures running towards them. Claire and Demi.

"Run!" Claire screamed, as the helicopters began to drift away.

"What?!" Bethani cried.

"Run!!" When the two groups met, Claire only remained still long enough to give Devon and Bobbye two of the handguns. The other two she had kept in her side holsters, with her own personal gun strapped to her chest. She pushed some clips into their hands, and sprinted off again, leaving the five dumbfounded for a second before they headed off after her.

"Demi!" Devon yelled as he grabbed her to a hasty embrace before the two of them ran after Claire. "I thought you were dead!" He had just blurted it out, and he frowned at his unexpected sentence. Was that what he thought had happened all along?

"Not...yet!" Demi had already become winded from the adrenaline and sprinting. Devon grabbed her hand and began to run to the café building, his handgun and baseball bat swinging wildly in his other free hand. Claire had already opened the door, and was waving them inside.

Bethani remained with Lori, and the two of them made their way at a slower pace, under the watchful eye of Demi and Devon, who were constantly looking back as they ran to make sure the two girls were okay. When Bethani began to exhaust herself, Devon let go of Demi and went back to lift Lori over his shoulder. She cried in pain as he jerked her off the ground and made his way up the stairs to the entrance.

The power in the building was out, save for the auxiliary charge that was powering the paneled lights somewhat. The six of them stood in the main hall of the Emerson Café and Student Functions building. There were two pairs of stairs leading up and down in the back of the room, leading to the Deans' offices, and to the game hall, respectively. To the side of the stairs was the entrance to the cafeteria. The medical office door was to the right, and it was propped open, as it usually was. It had once been a bookstore, but now served as a large waiting room and office for the sick. To the left was a food court, with another entrance beyond the tables. Deep red brick made up the walls, with a slightly dated banner reading "Welcome to New Student Orientation" that hadn't been taken down for the past couple of weeks. The place was deserted; the café had closed many hours earlier, and there appeared to be no signs of gore in the room.

Devon propped Lori against the wall, wincing at her cry of agony.

"Lori," Devon's tone was stern, but fearful. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know…It just…It hurts."

"What does?"

"…Everything…"

Devon stared into her tortured eyes for an answer, but found nothing but exhaustion and suffering. He stood back up, and began to position the holster and gun on the side of his belt.

"Lori," Claire said, the following words flowing out slowly, "what happened exactly? How were you injured?" She knew the answer.

"One of…Devon's friends…he…attacked me…"

"Was he a zombie?"

With much effort, Lori nodded.

Claire frowned, and opened her mouth to speak, her mind still finding the words to say. "Okay, Lori…You'll be--" She stopped in mid-sentence; she didn't have the courage to lie to one of her dying friends. She looked over at Devon with knowing eyes. "Devon, can I talk to you for a minute?"

He nodded, slowly, afraid of what she would tell him. She slowly walked around a corner of the main room, out of sight of the rest of the group.

"Devon, Lori is going to die."

"What?!" His voice echoed through the entire room, and it made the others jump in surprise. Hearing how loud his voice had been, he moved in slightly closer, trying to keep it at a whisper. "How do you know?"

"She was bitten. She's been infected with the Delta Virus, and she's going to go at any minute now." She was once again distanced from the situation, as if a doctor was giving the bad news for a family that had lost a member.

Devon's spine tingled at the sudden and deadly turn of events, and he stared into Claire's eyes for a while. He mouthed the word "no," but no sound was heard. He slowly began to shake his head, before audibly speaking once more. "No, that can't be."

"I'm sorry."

"Well, we can fix her, or save her or something, right?"

She shook her head solemnly.

Tears started to well up in his eyes, and he looked away in an attempt to conceal them. A quick hand brushed them away, and he continued. "So, what are we supposed to do? She's just going to die, just like that? We just lost Eric to these things, and now we're losing Lori too." His voice was belittling, although it was not his intention to sound so.

She faltered with her point as Devon had delivered her the bad news about Eric. However, she quickly recovered, trying to stay focused on what needed to be done. "She's going to turn into one of the undead soon, and then she's going to be a threat to us."

His eyebrows raised, as another tear traced his cheek. "You mean, she's going to become one of the very things we're trying to kill?"

Claire nodded slowly, and then closed her eyes, fighting back her own emotions.

Devon clenched his jaw, and began to look around the room, as if the actions were physical manifestations of his mind at work. His eyes darted in vain, his vision clouding over from the tears threatening to release. "So," his voice was shaky, "what, we have to kill her?"

She stared at him as her own eyes glazed over with water.

"I don't believe this." He walked past her, one hand made into a fist clenched in helplessness and rage, and the other gripped tightly around his bat. He threatened to hit his free hand against a nearby table. He raised his fist, yet limply relaxed it, and let his open hand flop against the wood, the sound traveling along the walls. "I'm…" Devon's words were slow and painful. "I'm so tired, Claire. I'm…I'm so tired…I can't…" He raised his hand weakly, to stop the flow of emotion, and turned back around to the group, eagerly waiting to be filled in on the conversation. "What am I going to tell them? What am I going to tell her?"

Claire was rigid, her teeth clenched to help stop her lip from quivering. She was trying her best to remain the strong one. This was always easier when it wasn't her friends that were suffering with her. It was one thing to be able to carry her own anguish, but when it was added to others, it seemed overbearing. It sounded horrible to her, but she wished that she hadn't known them in some respects, that way this would be much easier for her.

"What am I going to tell her, Claire?"

"…I don't know."

****

"What do you think they're talking about?" Bethani asked, as she nervously stared out the front doors.

"I don't know," Demi said, "but I would assume it's something bad."

They were silent with agreement.

Bobbye frowned as she strained to hear something in the distance. "Did anyone…else hear that?"

"What?" Bethani asked.

"I'm…not quite sure…It was some sort of yell."

"It probably was," Lori strained to speak. "Look…what's happening…here…"

"No, it was something…different."

The hairs on the back of Demi's neck stood on end. She didn't know what Bobbye was talking about, and she didn't hear the supposed sound, but something in her voice made blood run cold. "Why won't this end," she finally said, "it's only been a couple of hours, but I don't think I can take much more."

Bobbye slid against the wall to a sitting position and checked the fresh clip in her gun once again. It had apparently become something of a nervous habit, as she would do it every couple of minutes. She made sure the safety was on, before she'd set the gun back in its holster. She flipped her long blonde hair to her other shoulder, and leaned her head against the hard brick wall, swallowing hard. Her eyes gazed at the paneled ceiling, waiting. She waited for Devon and Claire to return, and she could still hear them mumbling about serious matters. She waited for the zombies to come tearing through the doors to rip them all to shreds. She waited for someone to rescue them. She waited for something, anything. At this point, it was all the same to her. The environmental sounds began to fade, the voices of Demi and Bethani muffling into unintelligible noise as her mind focused on the happier times of her life. Of her winning state in last year's tennis tournament, of her arm wrestling Claire repeatedly, and winning each time. Last year's formal Christmas dance. The memories were so familiar, so close, yet unreachable. She could only admire them in remembrance.

"Wow Demi," Bethani said, "I really can't believe you're still alive."

Bethani received an ill glare from the freshman girl.

"No, not like that," she explained, "it's just, I don't know how anyone could go so long here by themselves. I thought you were dead for sure."

Demi didn't know quite how to take the words. She frowned before gracelessly saying, "Yeah, I hid a lot." She smirked at how stupid that must have sounded, but Bethani had not seemed to notice.

"Yeah, Claire saved me. I was about to be eaten by my roommate." While the words were well placed, the tone at which she said them was almost joking. Even in the grim circumstances at hand, Beth was still somewhat cheerful. Demi wasn't quite sure how she was able to maintain a light-hearted state of mind in the situation.

It was then that Demi and Beth caught sight of Devon and Claire walking back to the group, their eyes glassy from welling tears. Devon walked toward Lori, catching a glance from Demi that just seemed to ask 'what's wrong.' He returned a weak smile to her before kneeling over to Lori, picking her up in his arms. She did not yell or cry; instead, she released a raspy breath along with a sound that appeared to be gurgling fluid within her lungs. He walked a couple of steps before stopping and turning to the group.

"I'm going to take her into the doctor's office. Maybe she'll be able to relax a bit."

Claire simply stared. No smile, no nod, just acceptance.

"Devon," Demi said as she got up and walked over to him, pushing her deep rose hair back with her long fingers, "what's wrong."

He simply smiled unconvincingly before walking through the propped door of the medical waiting room. He tried to open the door to the office itself, but it was firmly locked in place. He set Lori down on the row of connected chairs in the waiting room, and began searching the reception desk for a spare set of keys.

"What's wrong with Lori, Claire." Bobbye's tone was imperative, demanding.

"She's going to be dead soon." Claire was very blunt, but that's what got the point across, and it seemed to help her shun her emotions a little.

Bobbye didn't move. Instead, she tilted her chin high, and still looking at Claire, slowly nodded. She looked at Demi and Bethani, as if she was going to say something, and then stopped. She didn't need to say anything, the other two girls were thinking the same thing.

They wanted to know who was next.

****

"Sir!" A white coated lab technician trotted over to the thick jawed man in the three-piece suit from behind one of the nearby white vans. "The second shift can't get into the Biolab. There are too many subjects in the upper floors, and we can't get in, nor can the first shift get out."

The man with the black tie stared at the technician, awaiting further explanation.

The scientist swallowed hard before continuing. "We, being the first and second shifts, are uh, requesting roughly half a dozen soldiers to clean out the premises.

The man didn't move, except for his eyes, which ever so slightly shifted to the side, eyeing a few armed soldiers bringing down a few more undead with their M-16s. "All right," he finally said in a low, throated tone, "prepare to depart within five minutes." As the scientist turned and jogged away, the man once again shifted his eyes to the soldiers, still firing at the remaining "subjects." It seemed now the zombies were spreading away from the campus, to the exteriors. _"There must not be many people left within the area."_ He musings turned to a single person. _"Maybe that means that Claire was caught off-guard. Even if she is still around, the tyrant is out now, along with the lickers and hunters. It won't be long now."_ With that, he turned to the nearby group of soldiers who had exterminated the threat, and were now reloading their weapons. He held up two fingers, then three, and six men scurried into two rows of rigid formation, awaiting their next orders.

****

"Well, as long as we're here, we might as well find the dean," Bobbye said, once again nervously checking the clip in her gun.

"Okay," Claire said, "I'll help you find him," her eyes scanned her friends to find another to join her. Her green eyes passed over Devon and Bethani, and locked onto Demi. She opened her mouth, to invite her to join her, but she then remembered how close her and Devon were. She decided to take Bethani instead. "Bethani, do you want to come with me?"

"I…I guess," Bethani said indecisively, "but why do we always split up like this? Wouldn't we be safer in groups?"

"Not in situations like this," Claire explained. Large groups don't do much against zombies. If you can't take down a group of zombies with one person, two won't be a whole lot better." She motioned Beth to follow her, and the three girls walked to the stairs. Suddenly, Claire spun around, her hand on her hip. Beth screamed in surprise at the sudden movement. "Demi, do you want a gun?"

"What?" Demi, apparently lost in her own thoughts, had not heard the question.

"Do you want my gun."

"Oh. Um," she ran her head through her rose hair. "I've never actually shot a gun before."

"It's easy," Claire said, as she took off one of her side holsters. "Devon will show you."

"But," Demi grew uncomfortable at the idea of controlling such fatal equipment, "what about Beth?"

"I don't _want_ one, Demi. I hate those things." Bethani was quick to answer.

Demi turned the firearm over in her hands, and looked at Devon, who weakly smiled at her. He mouthed, 'it'll be okay.' He then walked forward a step to speak.

"I'm going to stay with Lori."

"Devon," Claire pleaded, "don't. Please…She's going to."

"I know, but she's in a lot of pain, and she's scared. If I were her, I'd hate to die alone."

Claire didn't argue with that, instead her words took a darker approach. "When it happens, you'll have to do it."

Devon knew what she was talking about. He needed no further explanation. Yet he said nothing as he stared at the ground.

"We're outta here then." Bobbye said quietly. "Tell Lori that…Um…We love her, and we'll miss her."

With that, the three girls trotted up the stairs to the second floor. Demi stared after them for a while, and swallowed hard before turning to Devon.

"Hey, I'm glad you're still safe." Her words were sharp, but she didn't mean them to be. Demi always seemed to have trouble expressing her feelings.

"Yeah, me too." Devon was equally as dense in his response. His eyes lit up in embarrassment, as he stammered to alter what he had said. "I, I mean, I'm glad that _you're_ safe. I didn't mean that I was glad I was safe. Well, I am, but…" He sighed in defeat. "It's good to see you, Demi."

She smiled at him.

"Hey," Devon said, "the medical room is locked, but there's a storage in the basement. Come with me, and we'll look for that key, okay? Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you."

"I know. But what about Lori?"

"Yeah…" he trailed off, "…but we won't be gone long. We'll be back soon enough…Maybe then we can find something to relieve her pain."

Devon wrapped his hand around her, while the other one held onto his bat. They walked down the dimly lit staircase together.

___________________


	7. Chapter Seven

Familiar Hauntings

Chapter Seven

___________________

The reptilian creature licked the blood off its claws, cleaning the weapons to their former charcoal-black sheen. It smirked as it scanned the man it had just killed. The head was lopped clean of his body, and his panic was still thick in the air. It curled its face into a prehistoric grin, an instinctive and primal satisfaction enveloping its features. It growled in triumph over its prey. After losing interest in its trophy, it began to clean off its translucent green skin, its tongue lashing rapidly, much like a cat drinking milk from a saucer. In the process of purging the blood from its appearance, it heard a sound. The head of the creature snapped up again as a metal door opened then closed. The sounds of footsteps echoed up the staircase. The monster cut its eyes, sensing new prey. With little sound, it bounded down the hallway, searching for a hiding spot to ambush the sport. It tilted its head upward, and jumped into a ceiling panel, breaking it in half as its head slammed into it with surprising force. Its entire body disappeared above the ceiling, as it effortlessly began to make its way around the small dark crawlspaces it had been provided with. It heard the sounds of the prey moving directly under it, yet it decided to wait until they crossed back through. Then it would attack. The hunter was about to claim a new victim.

****

Devon and Demi descended the staircase together; his arm still wrapped around her shoulders in a protective manner. At least, he intended it to originally be in a protective manner, but he liked the feeling of being so close to her, to feel her body warmth on his. Their footsteps echoed down the dimly lit staircase, as the basement floor hallway came into view. Directly in front of them, to the east, was a long corridor, maybe sixty feet long, with glass double doors at the end. Between those doors and the survivors were five to six rooms reserved for student functions and fraternity and sorority conference rooms. They stepped of the staircase and turned behind it, moving at a very slow pace along the way. Devon peered around the corners, positioning himself so that Demi never left his peripheral vision. At the west end of the corridor, there was a large, shady game room and a bowling alley. This was the student center. The corridor took a ninety-degree turn to the left to reveal the student recreations room. There was an old foosball table, along with a Ping-Pong table and a couple of vending machines. The corridor continued through the recreation center, and it ended with a small computer lab to the right, an elevator on the left, and directly at the end of the hall was a small stainless steel door with a handlebar doorknob. There was a plaque on the door, simply labeled "FAC. MNT. --AUTHROIZED PERSONNEL ONLY."

Devon made a small motion with his bat, indicating the latter. "That's what we're looking for. He cocked his head to Demi. "Be ready for anything okay?"

She nodded weakly, as she began to look around the dimly lit recreation center. Just a few short days ago, she was beating Devon at table tennis fifteen to three. The entire place was filled with noise and commotion. The rattling of the foosball table being jerked around by two rowdy boys, yelling out obscenities to one another as they tried to position their pieces strategically to beat his opponent. The nearby game room behind them had crackled with the electronic beeping of video games, and the cracking break of a billiards game. The student attendant behind the counter was in the process of doing her homework, talking to her best friend over the phone, and handing out bowling shoes and pool balls as she did so. Loud punk music played over the loudspeakers, as passers-by walking to the computer lab silently sang their favorite songs. Devon said something to her and left her side to go behind the glass booth to find the maintenance key, and began rummaging through a drawer. She hadn't completely noticed; she was lost in her thoughts. Just a few days ago, this place had been filled with the commotion and noise of a living, breathing community. Now this place was quiet, unfamiliar. The soul of the building had been taken with the students, and in its emptiness stood a reflection of Demi's very being. Even the familiar sounds of the bowling balls thundering down the lane was absent. As she stared at the lifeless alleys, something caught her eye.

"Devon," she said quietly. He grabbed the key out of the booth and pocketed it before returning to her. He stood back at her side and said nothing, only glanced in her direction as he looked around the rest of the student rec. center for any type of threat. "Devon, that panel of glass is broken out of the bowling alley."

He looked over in the direction she was pointing at. Sure enough, one of the large six-foot panes of glass was shattered from the outside of the bowling alleys.

Devon frowned, not quite sure what to make of it. "Huh, that's odd."

In reply, the two heard a low, rasping cry, unlike the familiar moan of the zombies. Devon's eyes widened in fear, as the hairs on the back of his neck stood straight on end. The two listened, frozen in time, as the unidentified source emitted another throaty sound. Then slowly, the clicking of claws was audible on the hardwood floor. A rhythmic, enchanting beat that seemed to stop Devon in his tracks. The unseen presence voiced another low growl, and Devon frowned and clenched his teeth as he pulled out his weapon from the holster. With a gun in one hand and his bat in the other, he seemed a bit more prepared.

He wasn't.

****

The three girls silently walked up the stairs, listening to their footprints reverberate off the walls of the second floor. Claire took in her surroundings, looking for someone who could help her, or something that could hurt her. Directly to the left was a glass conference room with a sleek black table with grey chairs of equal caliber. They reached the top of the stairs, which led to a luxurious lobby, with palm trees and beautiful dark red carpeting. One door led outside to the second floor patio, where a few tables and chairs were scattered around the area. In front of them, a hallway continued to the left and right, with the dean's office being the end door on the right. Everything seemed to be in order, and Claire wasn't too alarmed. Bethani, however, did not share those feelings. She had a strong grip on Bobbye's forearm, much to her annoyance. Bobbye shrugged her off for the third time in a minute.

"Will you stop doing that?"

"I'm sorry, I can't help it! It's not exactly like I fight dead people for a living, you know."

Bobbye frowned. "Please get off me, Beth!" Bobbye halfway pleaded with her. "I won't be able to get a clean shot with you grabbing my arm all the time."

Claire widened her stride to get past the bickering girls. She casually walked around the room, finding no signs of disturbance. She walked into the hallway, noticing a broken panel from the ceiling lying on the floor. Her muscles tensed instinctively.

"Get your gun out Bobbye," Claire whispered, "we're not alone in here."

"What do you mean?" Bobbye began to look wildly to her surroundings trying to find what it was to make Claire say such a thing. As she reached into her holster for her gun, Bethani grasped her arm once again.

"Please don't do that, Bethani…Please." Desperation was beginning to seep into Bobbye's voice.

Claire stood still, not daring to move a muscle. She wasn't looking at anything in particular, just listening. She stared at a patch of carpeting on the floor as she strained to hear what she expected was lurking around. She frowned. _"This is so similar to what had happened before…Those other times."_ She closed her eyes tightly. _"Why does this always come back to haunt me? Why can't I get away from all this? Is this going to keep happening until I die? Is that what is supposed to happen to me? Am I going to have to keep going through this until I die?"_ She clenched her teeth in bitter anger and sadness. She opened her eyes again, trying to concentrate on the task at hand instead.

"What's wrong, Claire?" Beth hoped that everything was okay. Images of her dying at the jaws of her dead friends screamed through her mind, scaring her worse with each relentless image.

"Nothing." Claire blinked away tear to the recesses of her eye once again, concealing it from view in the dim lighting of the room. "Let's find the dean, okay?" She began to walk down the other side of the hallway. As they got closer, they could see that the door was slightly cracked open. Swallowing hard, Claire fought back the adrenaline as she cautiously approached the door. She peered through the crack from a few feet away, and saw that the room was trashed. Claire held up a finger to Bobbye, intending it to tell her to be on guard.

Bobbye didn't have the slightest idea of what to expect. She didn't know what Claire thought was around, but she just couldn't bring herself around to asking her. She felt it was better that she didn't know, somehow. Even in circumstances like these, ignorance was bliss. _"I work better under the element of surprise, anyway."_ She was slightly amused at this thought, as she bit her lip. She watched Claire slowly begin to open the door.

Bethani did everything she could think of to keep her from screaming. Her hands worked tirelessly at her sides. They wanted nothing more than to latch on to her friends arm once again. While her two friends were right next to her, they might as well have been a hundred miles away. She felt so alone, so helpless. She felt the throbbing pulse of her heart deep in her ears, and as Claire gradually opened the door, ready for whatever might be in there, her heart rate quickened to almost intolerable levels. She felt her body temperature increase, and her breathing grow harder. She knew something was on the other side of that door. She just knew it.

The secret the room held shocked Claire, but not quite in the way she had expected. After seeing enough to realize there was no direct danger in the room, she casually flung the door open. It banged loudly on the wall, causing both Bobbye and Bethani to jump. A shrill scream escaped Beth's lips before she quickly clasped her hand around her mouth, mortified at what her voice might bring to her. She stared at Claire, awaiting a confirmation. Upon seeing the softening of her facial features, she began to relax.

"Claire, what's going on?" Bobbye yelled from behind the veteran. "What's in there?"

"The dean." She sighed deeply with a hint of disappointment. "But he's dead already."

The other girls walked into the room, their jaws dropping in disgust at what their eyes had found. A body was slumped against one of the corners of the room, covered in streaming blood. The head of Dean Carson had been removed from his body, and was lying a few inches from his slumped figure. It was angled in a way that his glazed eyes stared at the bottom of his glass desk, which was spattered with blood. A large pool of blood lay beneath both the head and the body, his white shirt beneath his sports coat covered in red gore. The rest of the room was a complete mess. There were claw marks in the wall, apparently from the brute force of the one clean swipe that felled the important man. On closer inspection, Claire was shocked to see that the man was still bleeding, meaning that it hadn't been long ago since his grisly demise. 

"What happened to him, Claire?" Bethani said as she crinkled her face in appall.

Claire shook her head. "I think a hunter got to him."

"A hunter?" Bobbye sounded almost over-interested at the words.

"Yeah, it seems so."

"Well," Bobbye said, slightly annoyed. She had expected more of an explanation. "What are those?"

"They look like lizards, but are muscular like a gorilla. They're green, they walk upright, and they have large claws on each limb that can do…well, this." Claire pointed to the victimized dean on the floor.

"My God."

Claire nodded. "The worst part is that Carson just recently died. Which means, the hunter is still in here, and in all probability, he probably knows exactly where we are."

Bethani stiffened in response. "You're kidding me."

"I wish I was."

Papers were scattered around the room, and Bobbye paced around the room, looking for anything that may be helpful to them. She wanted to get off the subject.

"Claire, maybe we can find what happened with this place without Carson. Help me look around for anything interesting."

The Claire and Bobbye wandered around the room, picking up papers and inspecting them in the near darkness, before setting them in a neat pile on one side of the room. Beth's job was to stay near the door, and if she saw anything move, she was to express it to the other two. Naturally, she felt she could handle something like that. The minutes passed, and still no signs of important documents.

"These are all financial papers and recordings of school conferences," Claire sighed. "There's nothing really worth taking." She walked over to the bookshelf and slightly tilted it forward, inspecting for any hidden documents behind it. Bobbye walked around to the front of the desk, stepping over the dismembered man with disgust. She fought sickness as the sound of her soles slapped the wet hardwood floor. Figuring the drawers were locked on the desk, she aimed her gun at it to break the mechanism. However, before she pulled the trigger, she stared around the somewhat tight space in the room, then at the two other girls wandering around, and thought it not to be the best idea. Instead, she tugged on it a bit, and was caught off balance when it opened freely. She was going to tell Claire about the new source, but decided to just start rummaging. She pulled everything out of the shallow drawer and set it on the desk. Then, one by one, she began to go through the disorganized papers.

"You got into the desk?" Claire asked rhetorically. "What'd you find?"

"Nothing yet. Just more financial papers. God, I didn't think the man had such a boring job. If the hunter didn't get him, the paperwork definitely would have."

Claire smiled slightly as she walked over to check the other desk drawers. Oddly enough, there was nothing in them.

"Nothing. It must have been full with all the papers we found around the room."

Bobbye didn't respond. She was lost in the papers she was reading, rhythmically moving over the words with her mouth for a few seconds before discarding the paper to the side. She kept the cycle going while Claire studied Bethani at the door. Beth was still looking intently down the hall, waiting for something to jump out at her. Bethani was certain the second something did happen, she'd die of shock or fright.

"Do you see anything Beth?" Claire noted Bethani's psychological state, and decided to use a more soothing voice.

"No, not yet. It's hard to see far away without a lot of light."

Claire looked up to see the inadequate electricity coursing through the florescent bulbs. They flickered weakly, but consistently, and she concluded that there was no real danger of a complete black out. At least not for a few more hours.

Bobbye reached into the drawer once more, and pushed her hand to the very back, making sure she didn't miss anything. In the process, an object stuck her underneath her fingernail. She grunted in pain, as she inspected the item that had poked her. She found a thin manila folder that was taped to the top of the drawer.

"Hey Claire, I might have found something." Claire raised her eyebrows at the prospect of a lead, and walked over to Bobbye. "This folder was taped to the top of his desk. He was hiding something, that's for sure."

Claire stood next to her as Bobbye opened the folder. Bethani glanced from the hallway to the folder as anticipation began to get the better of her.

"What'd you find, guys?"

Inside the folder was one paper, with a written note stapled to the front of it, and a small envelope. Bobbye and Claire began to read it, their eyes working in unison as they read the same thing at the same time.

__

To B. W. Carson,

Thank you for purchasing your most recent shipment. I can assure you that your satisfaction will be guaranteed. Due to security reasons of the material at hand, representatives of Umbrella Incorporated will periodically check on your progress. However, misuse of the material at hand will breach Contract 11-02A and will bring appropriate consequences against you and all personnel involved. As always, it has been an honor supplying your establishment with our best products, and we look forward to new business in the future.

Most respectfully,

K. R. Jansen

"You have got to be kidding me!" Claire nearly yelled her statement, once again making Bethani jump and scream.

"What?" Bethani said, "What's wrong?"

"This letter states that…Umbrella had a deal with Carson all along?" Bobbye was still in the process of putting everything together. Her mind raced as she began to fit the pieces together.

"So it's not completely all Umbrella's doing right?" Bethani added. "Carson had more to do with this than we thought, huh?"

"Well," Claire said, "he does have some sort of connection. He's been buying _something_ from Umbrella. I'll bet you it's not lawn fertilizer, either."

"But it doesn't really say how much of the faculty knew about this," Bobbye mumbled, partly to herself. She began to read the smaller, hand-written note to herself.

"Wouldn't the faculty know something was up if they came up missing money?" Bethani asked, glancing back down the corridor.

"Not necessarily," Claire objected. "Carson was in charge of finances, so he and a couple of other people could have concealed it entirely, if they played their cards right."

"No way!" Bethani said. "So, our school's been working for Umbrella?!"

"I'm not sure," Claire shrugged, "more or less, I'd imagine. It wouldn't be that surprising. Umbrella infects everything it touches. A lot like the viruses they create. It just doesn't make that much sense, though. This is the Delta Virus we're dealing with here, and I thought it was still under development."

"So, now what Claire?" Bethani stared into the hallway as she said it.

"What did that note say, Bobbye?"

"It's time tables for a Biolab. Do they mean the Biology Building?"

"I'd imagine so." Claire reached into the envelope, and pulled out an unmarked ID card. "I'd be willing to bet this is how we get to what we want to find, too."

"But, according to these tables, the card will only work from 4:00 to 5:00 in the morning. It's some sort of security measure."

"Great." Claire sighed. "That's two hours from now."

"We'll just have to hide out somewhere, I guess."

"So," Bethani concluded, "if we go to the Biology Building, we'll find what Umbrella is after?"

Claire frowned once again, and bit her bottom lip, her mind growing more troubled at the complexities compounding in her mind. "Yeah. But now I wonder if this is Umbrella's doing, or if it's Carson's."

"Why would Carson try to kill off the entire campus?" Bobbye asked, pulling her hair back, and resetting her scrunchie.

"I'm not quite sure. Maybe it was an accident. At any rate, I'm beginning to wonder if the school was working as a development branch for Umbrella. That's the only reason the Delta Virus would be here, and it would explain why our Biology Building is the best in the country."

"Well," Bobbye sighed, as she checked the clip in her gun once again, "we won't be able to find out much more here. Let's go find Devon and Demi and…" she stopped herself before she could mention the third person of the other group. Lori was gone. "…Well, let's find the others and get going."

"Hold on," Claire said sternly, as she bent down to the unfortunate man slouched on the ground. She fished his wallet out of his pants. It too was covered in blood.

"Mugging the guy's not going to get much done for our situation, Claire." Bethani was half-serious with her comment, as she wasn't quite sure what Claire was doing. Claire ignored the girls semi-intended sarcasm as she continued to flip past the pictures of family, kids and various credit cards. She frowned in frustration as she found nothing she wanted to, then proceeded to tear out the leather lining. Her eyes lit up as she found what she was looking for.

"Ah-ha!"

"What is that, Claire?" Bobbye cocked her head to one side in a questioning manner.

"It's the pin number to the card, I'd imagine." She held up a paper no more than an inch wide with numbers written in red ink.

Not wanting to stay there any longer than necessary, Bethani pleaded with Claire to leave.

"Yeah," Claire nodded, "we're out of here."

They began to walk out the door, and back down the hallway, when Bethani stopped in her tracks.

"What's up, comrade?" Bobbye said in her usual flair. Shortly after she stopped, she knew why Bethani had.

"I hear…gunshots." Bethani said blankly.

"Devon and Demi…" Claire trailed off.

****

Devon pumped a few more rounds into the repulsive creature scrambling along the floor towards them. It twisted in pain for a second before regaining its composure once again. Demi fired wildly at the monster, some bullets breaking the other windows in the bowling alley, while others ricocheted off the solid brick walls. However, Devon was too wrapped up in his battle to notice. Once again, the mighty stimulant began to course through his veins, and soon enough his muscles ached with adrenaline. They burned to run, to attack, to simply move. However, he remained stationary as he shot two more rounds into the creature's exposed brain. A stream of blood spurted from one of the many wounds on the creature, and it screeched again, but its onslaught wasn't fazed. It smirked at Devon, showing rows of jagged teeth, and raised itself off the ground a bit, until it resembled a track runner's starting stance. It was about to pounce. Devon's eyes widened, has he pushed Demi hard out of the way while simultaneously jumping in the opposite direction. However, he wasn't quite quick enough, as the creatures left claws managed to cut into his right arm. He yelled in surprise as he stumbled a few steps back. Demi had hit the wall of the rec. center hard, and in the process had dropped her gun. The creature then turned to her, and began to scramble towards her in its awkward, disturbing motion. Her back was against the wall, yet still appeared to try to move away from the creature. She screamed in terror as it opened its mouth, spewing hot saliva from its jaws. Before it was close enough to do any harm to her, Devon hit it with his bat from behind in the middle of its back. It arched upward in pain and anger, and in one quick motion the beast swiveled its head around and flicked its tongue out at Devon's head. It happened so fast, Devon had no time to react. The muscle would have easily pierced his skin like a knife; however, it was off by about a foot, and Devon took the time to smash the side of its brain with the bat. It screamed in agony, and he hit it again and again. It unexpectedly flipped onto its back, and wildly flailed its limbs, the barrage of attacks finally beginning to take their toll on the skinless atrocity. Devon raised his handgun once again and fired two more rounds into the creature's softer chest. It screamed a wet cry, its lungs already beginning to fill with fluid. Its flailing began to slow, gradually, rhythmically, until it curled inward on itself, much like a dead spider. For many seconds, all was silent. The two didn't dare to speak, as it might reawaken the demonic beast once again. Demi was still positioned against the wall in the same way she had tried to escape, her palms gripping the cold brick, her left foot pressed against it. She stood still, wide-eyed and heaving. Her frightened eyes traveled from Devon to the creature, and back to Devon again. She finally gained the courage to speak.

"Is it dead?"

Devon shook his head, his eyes also wide with fear and excitement. "I don't know." He swallowed hard, and nudged the creature's head with the end of his bat, evoking a small whimper from Demi. However, the creature moved no more than Devon had made it. He was surprised with the resiliency of the monster. The brain, which he figured would be a weak spot, seemed to have the characteristics of a muscle more than an organ. It was hard and firm, much like a bodybuilder's bicep, and it made a sound similar to a dull thud when Devon hit it with the bat. It wasn't exactly what Devon had expected. He wiped the perspiration off his brow, and slowed his breathing to avoid the familiar shock of adrenaline thinning out in his system. We walked over to Demi, and grabbed her by the shoulders, and stared into her eyes.

"Are you okay?"

"I…I think so." Her expression changed from fear as he stared into her eyes. She looked away, embarrassed. "Thanks for saving me, Devon."

"Don't…don't mention it." He began to turn red himself at her gratitude. She looked back into his eyes, and she felt his warm hands pressed firmly against her shoulders. Her eyes turned to her long slender fingers, which touched his forearm, and traced their way up to the bicep, where there was a good-sized laceration cut into it. Blood meshed with the white shirt underneath his sleeveless sweater, and began to spread up towards the shoulder. Droplets fell from the soaked material, landing on the brown, thin carpeted floor.

"You're hurt."

"No, it's okay. Really…" Devon's face was still flushed with embarrassment from the intimacy as she gingerly touched the wound. As she did so, she looked into his eyes for a response. His grip had lessened on her shoulders, although he hadn't noticed.

"Are you sure…?"

"Yeah. I'll be fine…"

Her eyes sparkled as he began to lose himself in them. He wasn't sure how much time had passed. It wasn't important. His heart began to beat furiously again with the uncertainty of the situation, as she opened her mouth. No words were spoken however. Her hand drifted back down to his forearm, and she held it, as her eyes did the talking for her. She smiled at him. It was a small, thin, comforting smile, one that Devon had rarely seen her wear. Even though they didn't know it, they were both wondering what was going to happen next.

Devon was the first to break the moment.

"We'd…Better get going. Lori's waiting for us."

She smiled again, however it was different than the tender one she wore only a few seconds ago. "Yeah." Inside she thinking of a different answer. _"You can be really dense, Devon."_ Yet, he seemed to know what he had passed up, as a forced smile on his lips did little to betray his true intentions. He stared down at the dead animal on the ground. He felt a strange sensation to laugh, due to the emotional overload. He followed the feeling, and began to chuckle to himself.

"Is something wrong?" Demi asked, confused and somewhat defensive. _"Is he laughing at me?!"_

"No, it's just…" he chuckled a bit before breaking into a strong laugh. Demi began to wonder if he had lost his mind. He finally began to recompose himself before continuing. "It's just that…what is that?"

Demi frowned, as he repeated himself.

"I mean really? What is that thing that I just killed?" He chuckled between his words. "I've never seen one of these things in my life! What's going on here? This is insane!"

"I think _you're_ insane."

He cocked his head and raised his eyebrows in acceptance, nodded. "Could be. Could be."

"Well, let's just keep going, okay?" His most recent mood change had unnerved her somewhat.

"Yeah, okay." He shook his head and smiled to himself as he put his gun back in the holster. He reached to the ground and grabbed Demi's gun, returning it to her. "I think you lost this."

"Yeah…uh, thanks."

With that, they walked down the hallway to the maintenance room, passing the computer lab on the right as they went. It was a small little cove of computers; maybe only ten or so of them were present in the small glass room. Satisfied that nothing was lurking nearby, the two approached the metal door. He retrieved the key from his pocket and began to unlock the door.

"Where did you find that?"

"What?"

"The key."

"The counter. Demi, you watched me get it."

"Oh," She said, detached. "I must have been thinking of other stuff."

"Well, _apparently_," Devon halfway joked. He jiggled the key in the lock a bit, and the door creaked open. He looked back to her. "Well, shall we?"

They walked in and Devon turned on the light. It was a tight space, no wider than the hallway they had been walking down. It was simply a storage room, with numerous computer monitors and parts, a few power tools among other construction equipment, and a few replacement bowling pins. Devon walked towards the power tools, holding a "Sawzall" in his hands.

"Too bad these are the corded types. Man, where's a chainsaw when you need one?"

Demi walked back to the very back of the space and opened a small, crudely made wooden cabinet. Inside were hundreds of keys marked only by numbers.

"Dev, I found the keys, but I don't know which one is the medical room key."

He walked over to her, and showed her the key chart at the bottom of the cabinet. "See? That chart coordinates the numbers to the rooms." He looked at the typed chart, and ran his bloody finger down the list. Demi once again looked at his arm, and noticed the trickling blood running down it in paths, as if flowing through invisible veins.

"You know, when we get you back to the Doctor's office, you're going to have to find a bandage, okay?"

Devon didn't give full attention to her; he was still running over the list. "Yeah, I will." He was quiet for a few more seconds. "There it is! 0113-Medical Room." Demi moved her hands around the keys looking for the correct one, and pulled a small silver one off near the top of the cabinet.

"Here it is."

"Great." Devon stared at the list a few seconds longer. "Hey, let's take 'key 0000,' too. That's the master key." It was a somewhat plain brass key near the bottom left corner of the cabinet, and Demi handed it to him.

"Alright, let's get back to Lori, okay Demi?"

"Yeah." He frowned as he remembered her current state. Claire's words of how she was going to die any minute rang into his head over and over again. He silently walked out the door, once again his hand was resting on his gun, awaiting any danger. Demi was close behind with her gun already drawn. This time, she wasn't going to be taken off guard.

They walked back through the student rec. center, listening to the spring-loaded maintenance door shutting on its own not daring to take their eyes off the motionless creature they had encountered a few minutes ago. They rounded the corner under the staircase, and stopped dead in their tracks. At the other distant end of the hallway, they saw a huge humanoid figure, which Devon estimated to be almost nine feet tall. He could only see the middle part of its chest; the rest was too high and out of view. Demi clenched Devon's hand in fear as her heart dropped into her stomach. She hadn't expected to see something so large. All she could do was wait for Devon or the figure to make a move. It was an agonizing wait. For a while, neither of them moved. As far as Devon could tell, it hadn't seen them yet. He slowly began to walk towards the staircase, trembling in fear as he continued to eye the giant claw on the right hand. At rest, the claw nearly touched the ground. Devon snaked his way around the railing, and onto the first stair, shifting his grip from Demi's hand to her forearm, so he was able to keep hold of her better. Slowly, the giant lifted his left hand and made a fist. It was easily the size of a human's head, and Devon could only imagine the devastation it could do. Suddenly, shattering silence and glass was heard as a million crystals reflected in the dim lighting from the outside street lamps. The monstrosity ducked into the building, it's vacant white eyes staring down the two horrified students. With an expressionless face, it raised its curved weapon to the side of his chest, its arm outstretched at almost a ninety-degree angle. It held it there for a minute, before crouching further to move through the hallway. Suddenly, it opened up into a full out sprint towards Devon and Demi. The two screamed and scrambled up the stairs desperately as the tyrant widened its stride. Devon sprinted to the Waiting Room, letting go of Demi's arm as he fumbled for the key to the Medical Office. He could hear the strides of Goliath running towards them at a breakneck pace, the rhythmic panting getting louder and louder.

"Hurry Devon! Hurry!" Demi cried with all her heart.

__

"Please God, don't let us die." Devon shoved the key into the lock, and it opened with a dull click. "Get in there, Demi!"

She ran inside as Devon grabbed the unconscious Lori off the connected row of chairs, and barged into the door. He set her on the papered bench, as Demi quickly locked the door. She walked away from it, staring wide-eyed at what was going to happen next. Tears streamed freely down her face. She knew she was going to die in there. More tears came when she heard the Tyrant stop in front of the waiting room - and walk in.

Devon reached for his gun again, knowing very well that it would do nothing to the behemoth. If the ogre opened that door, they were all dead, and he'd have to accept it. He motioned Demi to come over by him, and together, they huddled in a corner of the room, between a cabinet shelf and a sink. She gripped his neck tightly, her warm tears traveling down his shirt. He rubbed her back rhythmically, yet said nothing. His eyes were closed as tight as he could manage. He didn't want to see it coming for them. He didn't want to see Demi die right in front of him. So he hid. It was all he could think of.

Demi watched the bottom of the door, as two distinct shadows appeared underneath it. It was standing _right there_. She held her breath, and gritted her teeth. She listened to the growling breaths of the large predator. They were slow and angry, and with each breath it took, it seemed to drive her closer to madness. She dared not to make a sound. She would only listen. Somewhere, she heard a sharp banging, but couldn't locate the source. She buried her face once again into Devon's chest, and remained here, silently racking with her sobs. And then, she did something she thought she'd never do again - She slept.

****

"Yeah, that was definitely gunshot!" Bethani cried, after the crackling of gunfire ceased.

"I hope those guys are okay…" Bobbye whispered.

Claire didn't even want to think about it. She had gone to her old tactics of mentally surviving these types of situations. She didn't think about what was happening to people, she only thought of accomplishing her objective. With that being the first thing on her mind, everything else didn't seem to hurt as much.

The girls turned around the corner, and began to walk to the stairs.

__

"But this time," Claire thought, _"This time it's so much harder. This time I have to watch over the others. They're too close to me. What kind of person would I be if I shut them out of my heart? What kind of person am I anyway?"_

Claire didn't have the time to finish her thoughts. In the fraction of a second, the ceiling fell down on top of them, showering them in a fine papery substance. With it came a large green object, piercing the air with its shrill war cry.

Mass confusion had set in. Claire dove away from the chaos and rolled across the floor, positioning herself to face what had tried to kill her. Her vision spun with the sudden attack, and as it began to come into focus, she had seen that one had not gotten away. The lizard-like hunter was perched on top of Bethani, its left claws plunged deep into her back. Beth gasped raspy breaths as the hunter dug its claws deeper into the back of her rib cage, clawing at the internal organs that brought her life.

Claire opened fire, quickly followed by Bobbye, and together, they had toppled the hunter, its bulk hitting the ground beside Bethani. Its arm was still lodged in her back, and with incredible speed, it tore its limb free from its prey and flipped back onto its hind legs. It grabbed Beth's leg and yanked her near the doorway of one of the rooms across the lobby. Bobbye stared straight ahead, looking at the area just above Bethani, waiting for the creature to show itself again. Her eyes began to turn to the helpless girl on the floor, lying in a pool of her own blood. Every once in a while, she struggled to fight the inevitable, her arms slowly dragging the rest of her body towards her friends. She looked at them with determined eyes. Bobbye shook her head at what she was witnessing. It could have just as easily been Claire lying on the floor. Or her. What did she do to deserve to watch her friends die one by one? Was this all she could do? Just watch one of her close friends die, without helping her? She had to do something.

"Bobbye," Claire whispered as the other girl slowly began to creep towards Bethani, "what are you doing? You'll get yourself killed!"

"I can't leave her there, comrade!" Bobbye's own tone was quiet but desperate and urgent. It had caught Claire off guard, and suddenly she felt very guilty for saying what she had said.

__

"She's going to die…" Claire did not stop Bobbye from approaching the injured girl, but instead she waited for the moment when the hunter would overtake her, too.

Bobbye crept forward in a stance much like a cat burglar, her slender arm outstretched, finger on the trigger. Slowly she made her way over to Bethani, and peered around the corner of the doorway somewhat. _"It seems like it ran off."_

Claire was thinking along the same topic. _"It's not gone, Bobbye. It's still there. Don't drop your guard."_

Not taking her eyes off the space in front of the door, Bobbye slowly began to drag Beth away from the door, her eyes working frantically to find the murderer. It was then that the hunter attacked. Not from Bobbye's front, but from Claire's flank. 

"Claire! Look out!"

It had somehow managed to reach the outside patio, and it had burst through the glass door. In one swift motion it leapt into the air, claws spread out, ready to take off Claire's head. Claire turned only to see the smirking creature's face. She had no time to react. Mere inches from her, the creature was suddenly propelled backwards, and the cracking of gunshot was heard. Claire was still standing on weak knees, her body in complete shock. She had come a hair's breadth to dying, but she had somehow managed to survive yet again. She slowly turned to Bobbye, who still held the smoking gun in front of her. She had let go of Bethani, and began to walk over towards the hunter. It was flopping around on the ground, struggling to regain its balance, shrieking all the while. Bobbye stood a few feet away from it, and emptied a couple more rounds into its face, which eventually silenced it.

Claire took in the spectacle, wide-eyed that someone had saved her for a change. "Bobbye…Thank you."

Bobbye simply flipped her hair and smiled sternly. The two girls went over to their dying friend. There was a gaping hole in Beth's back, roughly three inches wide. Blood gushed from it at such a rate that it was useless to try to stop the flow. They both knew that she was going to die. Bethani's sweet, innocent eyes had already begun to glaze over. First came the shock, and then death soon would follow.

"I'm sorry, comrade. I'm sorry." Bobbye couldn't remember saying so many apologies in her life. It seemed like that was all she was capable of doing in the situation. She stroked Beth's beautiful brown wavy hair. "You're going to be okay, comrade. You're job's done." Bobbye's eyes began to sting once again, yet she fought against the welling of tears. Her voice was soothing, yet monotone. "Watch us from above, okay?" Bethani's head was tilted to the side, her mouth gaping like a fish on land, her slight twitching jerking her head. Bobbye couldn't watch anymore. "I'll miss you." She turned and faced the staircase leading back down to the main room.

Claire hated herself. She felt like she was the one killing her friends. Wherever she went, her past followed her, and it would attempt to take down as many close friends as possible along with her. It had already claimed two of them, with Lori soon joining as a third. For a while she just stared into Beth's eyes. She watched the life fade from them without moving. She simply stared into Beth's departing soul, her own glare one filled with regret, pain, and sadness. "Bobbye," She said, still staring at Beth. "Find Demi and Devon, and get out of here. I'll kill you too if you don't go."

The words frightened Bobbye, but it was also an indirect challenge, even though Claire had not intended it to be so. "No," she said half out of spite, "I'm in this until it's over." It was then that a new realization began to dawn on the athletic student. She had a duty to fulfill her, just like Claire. She had already lost so many of her friends from what had happened here, she wouldn't run away. Not yet. And if she died, at least she'd be dying with the people closest to her. "I'm not leaving, Claire." Her voice was resolute, final.

Claire nodded in a knowing manner. She was about to tell Bobbye that she was glad she had decided what she did, but she didn't get the chance. Her eye caught something at the bottom of the stairs. She walked over to the top of the staircase, and it was then that her worst fears were realized. The tyrant was loose. It was pacing around the main room of the Student Services building, waiting for something.

Bobbye had seen it too, and judging by the intense look on Claire's face, it was their biggest worry at the moment. "What do we do now, Claire?"

She stared onward for a few more seconds, the lump in her throat growing ever bigger. She looked to the patio. "Let's go there." Her voice was no more than a whisper. The two girls crawled over the body of the hunter, and didn't even bother opening the door. They just stepped right through the broken glass. The air was a bit chiller than Bobbye had remembered, and she looked to Claire for further instructions.

Claire remained silent for a few seconds, before looking back in the general direction of the staircase. "I don't think he'll come up here. We'll be safe for the time being."

"So, we just stay up here for a while?"

"Yeah. Around 3:30 or so, we'll hit that Biology building."

Bobbye dreaded her next words. "So, we wait." Waiting meant festering to her emotions. She felt this could be the worst thing to happen to her at the moment, next to falling victim to monsters like Bethani did.

"We wait."

With that, the two girls sat on the patio, and became lost into their own thoughts.

****

Roughly fifteen minutes had passed since they had escaped to the Medical Office, and Demi had already fallen asleep on Devon. Devon had tried the same thing, but he wasn't able to. He had to find a way to stop his bleeding arm. It was cut deeper than he had originally thought. He had managed to prop Demi against the cabinet as he got up to bandage his wound and check on Lori. He opened a red wood cabinet and rummaged around until he found a cloth brace and white gauze. As he wrapped his bicep, he couldn't help but noticed how pale she looked. Like a porcelain figurine. Her breathing was shallow; so shallow in fact, he couldn't tell she was breathing at all. He hadn't paid that much attention to it however; he was still wrapping his arm with gauze. He talked to her as he did it, but quietly, so as not to disturb the beautiful girl sleeping on the floor.

"I really let you down, didn't I, Lori." He shook his head bitterly, as he wrapped his arm tighter and tighter, the pain starting to flood his senses once again. "If I were able to watch out for you better, you'd still be okay. But now you're going to die, right here in front of me." He corrected himself. "No, I've sentenced you to something worse than death. You're going to become something that isn't even classified in your mind as human. Because of me. I'm so sorry Lori. I'm sorry." He thought it strange that he felt no urge to lament over the inevitable loss of his friend. He felt nothing but self-pity. "If I were only a little stronger, you'd be okay. If only I…"

He was cut off as Lori made a sound. It seemed as if she was having a bad dream to Devon, and he began to walk over to her. Devon hoped that she was coming out of her coma.

"Lori, are you okay?"

She didn't respond; just more short painful moans.

He stood above her, inspecting her. Her lips were almost blue; her eyelids were almost translucent. He was surprised to see them begin to twitch and spasm to life.

"Lori, are you okay?"

"Devon, what's going on?" Demi had awakened from her short-lived sleep.

"I think she's about to wake up," Devon said with hope in his voice. "I think she's going to…" He gasped in horror as her eyes fluttered open to reveal milky, clouded pools. Awkwardly, almost impossibly it seemed, she began to lift herself to an upright position.

"No…"

Lori stumbled off the doctor's bench, landing on weak knees. She then stared at Devon with lifeless eyes. Her jaw began to work, as she slowly began to stumble towards him.

"Lori, it…it's me."

It was no use. She walked around to the other side of the bench, and stopped roughly five feet in front of Devon. Demi watched in horror from her hiding spot as Devon slowly lifted his gun and pointed it at her head.

"Devon…"

Devon still felt nothing. He was completely emotionless and had no thoughts towards it, other than he didn't feel like himself anymore. He went over the trigger with his finger, feeling the smooth surfaces, and the angular corners. He set the sights of the gun on Lori's forehead, and waited for her to make the next move. For an eternity, he stared at the world through those sights, through that weapon of destruction. Behind it, he had the power to destroy anything that stood in his way. Lori was no different now. She was one of them, and that was all.

"Devon…" Demi had watched his face go from fright and surprise, to calmness and serenity, to chaos and destruction. It scared her. She slowly began to walk behind him. The deciding factor for Devon was Demi's gentle touch. It had pushed him over the edge that he had been walking the past few hours.

He closed his eyes as he pulled the trigger. While he felt the gun recoil in his hand, he heard no sound.

Lori dropped to the floor, as Demi covered her mouth in sheer horror.

Devon stared straight ahead, continuing to look at the blood-splattered brick wall through his sights. He slowly dropped his gun to his side, still staring at the dripping wall. He felt something in the distances of his heart. It was small at first, but slowly it gained momentum. By the time Devon realized what it was, it was too late.

The gun fell from his hands, landing against the hard floor.

Emotion flooded every nook of Devon's being. He had no way to control it. Anger surged into his hands, and he grabbed his bat he had propped against the cabinet. With a mighty yell, he slammed it into the cabinet doors, buckling them under the pressure. Demi screamed and covered her ears as he continued his onslaught. He grabbed the bench Lori had been resting upon, and with a pained growl, he tipped it over, the weight crushing the tiles beneath it. He threw his bat against the wall, not content with the destruction he had caused. Maybe if he felt some pain…He slammed his right fist against the brick wall, and pulled it away, a small droplet of red standing out against the white painted brick. It wasn't enough. He cocked back again, grinding his knuckles into the wall with extreme force. The audible crack of breaking knuckles was heard as trails of blood spat against the wall in all directions. It still wasn't enough. He pulled his arm back for another shot, but this time it was caught by the small petite girl with the copper-red hair. He turned to look at her with wild eyes, and they were met with hers. They were caring, hurting, sympathetic. Her bottom lip quivered as she spoke.

"Please stop this Devon. You're scaring me. Please don't give up like this. Please. I'm so scared right now, and I really need you. So please…Please…"

He stared at her with a look reminiscent of confusion. Demi couldn't hold back anymore, and she forced her way into his arms, much to his surprise. He felt the spasms of her small body caused by her sadness, and her fingertips on his back, moving, searching. It was then that Devon completely let go, and an unbridled wave of grief coated his soul. He wept bitterly with Demi in the middle of the now destroyed Medical Office. He had realized his despair had enslaved him, and he was ashamed of what he had done. He gripped her tighter, pulling her closer to him. In response, she did the same. A part of him had just died in the room with Lori, so he felt he had to hold on that much harder to the part that was still left. He didn't want to let go, for even in the midst of the despair and shame he was lost to, he felt that he had found the most secure place he could be in. 

After a few more minutes, his tears began to subside, and he pulled Demi away enough to look into her red eyes with his own. He had wanted to tell her that he needed her, that she was the reason he could still keep going. He wanted to let her know that he'd gladly die for her, if it meant that she would be okay. He wanted to let her know that she was the dearest thing to his heart on this planet. He wanted to let her know that with them together, everything would be okay. But he just couldn't bring himself to say the words. They simply wouldn't come out.

So he kissed her instead.

___________________


	8. Chapter Eight

Familiar Hauntings

Chapter Eight

___________________

Everyone had been killed out of the rescue mission brought on by Umbrella. The half dozen soldiers had been ill trained for the battles against countless zombies. Even a hunter had managed to bring down a few of the scientists. They hadn't even made it to the elevator; the entire place was crawling with undead and other abominations. Their demise had long since passed, the remains bare from the countless feasting cannibals. The soldiers had managed to keep most of them at bay, but eventually they all ran out of rounds and it was in the period of reloading that they were overtaken. Umbrella had known the purging of the complex had been unsuccessful, but the man in the black tie had only seen it as a small temporary setback, an annoyance more than anything. He ordered the exhausted first shift to continue working until replacements would arrive. He would then send a larger squad to get rid of the pests. The dozen or so bodies of the soldiers and the second shift lay in the middle of the floor, in the center of the masses of roaming zombies. They had long since lost interest in the Umbrella workers; there was nothing left to be interested in. So now they waited for the next party unfortunate enough to make the decision to walk through those double doors.

****

It had taken him God knows how long, but he had finally made it. Jim Bowman looked at his watch. "Three hundred twenty hours," he muttered, "Not too damn bad if I do say so myself."

He had pulled his truck to the side of the road roughly a mile from the school to change into his camouflage suit, knowing that he stood no chance of getting through Umbrella's sight if he was in normal civilian clothes. Wearing what he was now, he shouldn't have too much of a problem getting through the security.

__

"I just have to act like I know what the hell I'm doing."

He had decided to leave the truck where it was parked. It was in a back alley next to a nearby convenience store and a small run down house. Strapping the firearms he had brought with him to his body, he silently walked down the deserted streets to the campus. Bowman was unsure if the people of Arden Springs had been evacuated, or if they were just sleeping, as normal people do at this time of night. In the distance, he heard the automatic fire of M-16s, accompanied by the faint shouts of soldiers.

__

"Hold on a little bit longer, Devon…Just a bit longer."

****

Claire and Bobbye had talked about everything they could think of to pass the time. Everything from past relationships to family trips were spoken of. They would even chuckle at their stories, seeming to genuinely enjoy the moment. However, their smiles would soon fade as the gloom of their situation would set in. But Bobbye had realized that the time they had spent wasn't nearly as hellish as she first imagined. She would have truly enjoyed it had they didn't have to pause between nearly every sentence to watch out for things that could dismember them. Bobbye hadn't really known Claire much deeper than the surface, and their friendship seemed to be blooming into the third dimension. Bobbye was listening intently to Claire's pitiful but quite humorous story of how Leon took Claire to a restaurant near Chicago before their trip to find her brother.

"So, he pretty much decides to take me out to help get my mind off things, and we end up going to this fancy French restaurant. But when he gets there, he won't let the valet park his car."

Bobbye raised her eyebrows in disbelief, and a smile cracked her lips. "You're kidding."

Claire grinned, and shook her head. She stared at the table; her eyes locked in remembrance as she continued. "Nope. The valet finally convinced him that it was his job to drive the car to the parking spot, so Leon gave him the keys. And as the poor guy's getting in, he says to him, 'I suppose you're going to want a tip too, huh?' It was _so_ embarrassing."

Bobbye chuckled a bit while cautiously glancing around her surroundings for threats. "Not exactly the extravagant type is he?"

"No," she murmured, "no, he's not."

There was a short silence before Bobbye urged her to continue. "Well comrade, go on! What happened next?"

Sinking back into the story, she giggled quietly to herself. "Well, we get inside, and he pretends he can speak French, so as he's looking through the menu, he keeps making all these confused faces at it, and his mouth was moving with the words like a six-year-old trying to read. It was the cutest thing I'd ever seen. Of course, he wouldn't ask me for help, or the waiter for that matter, so he picks the easiest thing for him to say. After the waiter left, he looks at me and says, 'yeah, I took a couple of years of French in high school.' He is the worst liar in the world, I swear."

"So," Bobbye attempted to predict the outcome, "I bet when he got his meal he was completely surprised at what he had gotten, right?"

Claire's face confirmed Bobbye's guess. "Boiled squid."

"That's so sad," Bobbye laughed, shaking her head. "I'd hate for that to happen to me."

"The evening was pretty much downhill from there."

"No good night kiss?"

Claire seemed shocked at Bobbye's inquiry. "Are you _kidding?_ I'd practically have to hit him over the head and demand something like that! I wasn't about to do _that._ He's one of the sweetest guys, and I really like him, but…"

"Not exactly the sharpest crayon in the box when it comes to relationships." Bobbye finished her statement.

"Exactly."  
There was a short silence. Claire mused for a minute, then asked Bobbye another question. "Hey Bobbye, why do you say 'comrade' all the time?" Bobbye smiled at her words, and Claire continued. "I mean, you're not exactly Russian, or a Communist, I just wondered why you said it."

"I don't know," Bobbye smiled through her words. "I guess it's just my word. No one ever uses it, and I just wanted something different. I've been using it since I was a freshman in high school."

"Wow."

"Yeah. It's pretty fun to see the reactions of the people that aren't expecting it. You should have seen Devon's face the first time I used that word in front of him."

Claire cocked her head at the new subject. "Really. What'd he say?"

"Well, he got sort of confused. You know, that look where he's not quite sure if he heard you right, but doesn't want to ask you again?"

She laughed aloud. "Oh yes, I know the one. He's quite good at it. It's a lot like Leon's."

"Well, finally his curiosity provoked him to ask the same thing, and after I told him, he was like, 'oh.' So each time I'd use that word afterwards, that same look would creep on his face, before disappearing again. It went like that for a week. I don't think he quite gets it to this day. He just accepts it, I think."

"That Devon," Claire shook her head. "I remember when I came here at the start of my freshman year. I was in his geology class, and he made it a point to get to know me whether I liked it or not."

"That sounds like our Devon."

"Well, at first, I thought he was pretty annoying, but after I got to know him, I don't know…He just kinda grew on me."

"Yeah, well…" Bobbye trailed off before eventually finding the rest of her statement, "…He seems to do that." Her tone slightly changed with her next sentence. "Do you think that Dev and Demi are okay?"

Claire frowned, unsure herself. "I don't know. I hope so."

This seemed to be enough for Bobbye at the moment. Her thoughts flashed back to Bethani. Not the one lying on the floor in the adjacent room, cold and lifeless, but the one of her memories. The one that would argue with her, and always try to outdo her, to no avail. It was going to be hard to continue in life without being able to talk and be with her. The same went with Lori and Eric. She didn't want to think about that right now, though.

"Hey Bobbye," Claire said, "we should get going, it's almost three-thirty. That card will work soon." With that, Claire and Bobbye rose out of their chairs, stretching casually while looking around once again for danger. "I'm sure Devon and Demi will eventually find us again."

"How are we going to get down?"

Claire walked to the edge of the patio, and looked down to the ground, seeing a few stray zombies wandering around about fifty yards from the building. "I don't want to take a chance with that tyrant being downstairs…Let's just climb down the side."

"You mean jump?"

Claire smirked at Bobbye's perceptiveness. "Yeah, pretty much."

"_That's_ going to hurt."

Claire spun around to face Bobbye in playful competitiveness. "Wow. All this coming from Miss Athletic? I'm amazed."

Bobbye cocked an eyebrow, acknowledging the challenge, and began to walk to Claire. However, instead of stopping in front of her, Bobbye jokingly pushed the girl out of the way, and proceeded to lift herself over the cement edge of the patio, landing squarely in a patch of large bushes. Bobbye cursed herself under her breath as she quickly surveyed a few scrapes on her arms, and looked up to see Claire leaning over the rail, her ponytail dangling in front of her face.

"How was it?"

In usual sarcastic tone, Bobbye retorted, "Great. You should try it sometime."

****

__

"Finally, after all this time…It finally happened." Devon was leaning against the medical cabinet, with a sleeping Demi on his chest. He stroked her hair absently, as he looked at his watch, which was displaying 3:30. Thoughts of her once again flooded his mind. _"It only took practically the end of the world."_

Not much had happened after that heart-stopping moment. He had stroked her rose hair out of her face, and gently pressed his thumb to her lips and brushed it to the side. 'Now I have a reason to get the both of us out of all this,' he had said. Devon had wrapped his self-inflicted wound, then decided that the two should sleep for a while, to regain strength and to pass the time. It hadn't come easy for Devon, as his mind was working furiously with the recent turn of events, both tragic and wonderful. He leaned down and kissed the top of her head, but softly, so as not to bother her. He lingered for a minute to catch the aroma of her hair, which smelled of a sweet herb he didn't know. Maybe jasmine, he didn't know much about such things. But it seemed everything she was doing was luring him closer to her. One of her hands rested just above her head on his left pectoral, while the other was gently wrapped around his injured right hand. Her fingers tugged slightly at the wrapping in her sleep. Her breathing was peaceful and deep; it seemed that nothing was wrong at all. He looked around the room casually. Due to the table he had tipped over, Lori wasn't visible from his angle, which was a godsend, since his eyes often fell over that general area. This was his world as far as he was concerned. Nothing else seemed to exist except the disrupted Medical Office, and the objects within it. He continued to stroke her hair as she sighed deeply, and her hands began to move, signing to him that she was waking up. She groggily tilted her head to look up at the face of her pillow.

"Are we still okay?"

He wasn't quite sure what she meant by that statement. She could have been referring to their safety, or their relationship state, but it didn't matter. Each subject harbored the same response.

"Yeah, we're okay."

She sat up on her own weight, wiping her tired eyes. "What time is it," she mumbled.

"Three-thirty."

"Oh." She was silent for a second as she looked into his eyes. Devon began to wonder if she was expecting him to say something. Finally, she spoke again. "Should we get going?"

"To where?"

She shook her head, "I don't know. Let's try to find a way out of here."

He softly kissed her forehead before whispering, "I'm trying. I'm trying."

****

Jim Bowman's moment of truth had come. He took a deep breath and walked into the crowd of identical soldiers, all outfitted in the same camouflage that he was in. As he began to walk through the crowd, he received no odd looks.

__

"They're not catching on…Then maybe I can…"

He searched the back of one of the unmarked vans to find a bunch of papers, which he decided to confiscate, and jumped in the back to acquire a couple of the M-16s resting on the back racks of the compartment. After grabbing a number of clips, he hopped out, and slung the two shoulder straps over himself, the nylon crossing in the front. He was quite literally a walking militia. He was covered from head to toe with weapons of all sorts, and they clanked around as he walked. As he began to walk into the campus, he heard the sharp words of a man behind him.

"Halt, soldier!"

__

"Damn."

For a second, he was half tempted to turn around, guns blazing, but decided against it. Slowly, he faced the man, a moderately ranked soldier with an icy glare. Bowman had no problem returning the look.

"State your business of wandering onto the campus without orders, soldier."

Bowman kept his temper to a minimum, noting the fact that he obviously outranked the hostile man, despite Jim's age. Jim's words were few, but effective. "Special operations, sir."

The man frowned, as Jim began to grow slightly anxious. "Special operations? Where's the rest of your men then, soldier?"

"I'm the only one, sir."

"Would you mind telling me why they're bringing in a one man team for such an operation, soldier?"

"I'm one of the few to survive the assault on Raccoon City…_sir_." Bowman's adrenaline had begun to rise, and as a result, he became somewhat defiant. "I know how these things work, _sir."_

The soldier cut his eyes at the young man, as he calculated his statements. Jim's stone face didn't waver, and the soldier took it as a face of someone that was speaking the truth, or knew what he was talking about. At any case, the Umbrella soldier dismissed him.

"As you were, soldier."

Bowman decided not to deliver a courteous departing gesture. The only one he could think to offer was the one-finger salute.

__

"You stupid moron. I hope I remember to kill you."

Jim walked from the line of soldiers into the middle of the somewhat deserted campus. His guns were audibly striking each other, which could be heard for quite some distance. Bowman rounded a corner, out of the sight of the malicious military, and slumped against the wall in relief.

__

"Damn. Wasn't too sure if that'd work. Now, where the hell are you, Devon?"

He reached into his side pocket, pulling a cigarette from the pack and lighting it with his zippo. He took a drag before placing it on the side of his mouth to puff at his leisure, and continued his search for his friend.

___________________


	9. Chapter Nine

Familiar Hauntings

Chapter Nine

___________________

"Oh my God…" Claire trailed off as she peered into the side windows of the entrance to the Biology Building. There were easily fifty to sixty zombies swarming the place, and with all of them in there, the chances of Bobbye and herself finding the lab were zero.

"Why do you think they're all in this area, Claire?" Bobbye cautiously moved her head around behind her friend's to get a better view of the scene.

Claire shook her head. "I'm…not sure, really. Maybe there's…" Claire stopped in mid-sentence, and corrected herself. "I don't know. Truth is, we wouldn't stand a chance with just handguns in there."

Bobbye was slow to reply. "…Well, we have to do something…it's not exactly like we have a whole lot of time to get down there, you know."

Claire bit her lip nervously, "Yeah, I know. Well, maybe we can get in through a side door, or an emergency exit…The main room is a no go for sure."

By this time, a few of the zombies on the inside had sought out Claire and Bobbye. They awkwardly stumbled to the door, and beat on the plexi-glass windows. The girls stood their ground, calmly watching the bloodthirsty creatures that were only a few feet away.

"…You know, the word 'stupid' shouldn't be taken lightly with these guys, comrade. This is a whole new ballpark of stupid." Bobbye motioned to the main doors, only ten feet to her left, then looked back to the incessantly pounding zombies.

Claire stared into their rotting faces a bit longer. "Let's go, we don't have a whole lot of time."

****

"Is it clear to go outside?" Demi was huddled behind a cautious Devon as the two slowly walked out of the medical waiting room, into the main hall of the student resources center. The area appeared to be desolate for the most part, save for a few zombies wandering around outside. The couple slowly walked through the room, nearing the staircases leading to the recreation center and the dean's office. A wary Devon peered down the stairs they had run up only a short while ago. That seemed like another life to him now.

"Where is it?"

Devon frowned before chopping his words. "It's…I think…I think it's gone."

Demi gripped his lacerated arm instinctively, which made Devon yell out in pain. This scared Demi, who also screamed. "I'm sorry!" She cried to him.

"It's okay…really," he said as the pain burrowed deep into his body, "but you really could let go if you wanted to help me out."

Demi hadn't realized that she had only gripped tighter when she screamed, much to Devon's dismay. She smiled sheepishly at him. "Sorry." She loosed her death grip on his wounded arm.

"I wonder if the others are still upstairs," wondered Devon as he painfully rubbed his throbbing bicep.

"I wouldn't think so," Demi had said. "That was a while ago. They're probably long gone."

"Yeah…"

"But," Demi interjected, "I think I might know where they might be!"

Devon shifted his glance to her out of the corner of his eye before quickly darting them back to the zombies wandering outside the front of the entrance. "Where?"

"Well, earlier, I was talking to Claire about how I thought everyone might have gotten infected in the first place. I told her that it might be in the food, and that we should check out the café sometime."

He looked over to the double doors of the cafeteria. "Okay," he said finally, "it's better than nothing."

With that, the two of them walked through the café doors, to find a few stray zombies wandering around slashed and overturned tables.

"Wow, that monster must have made his way through here…"

"Yeah," Devon agreed. "He seemed to be a bit angry at that." His gaze turned to a few zombies with deep slash wounds running across their bodies. Some of them were completely beheaded. His eyes found a zombie that had been completely cut in half at the waist, yet was somehow still moving around on its broken arms.

Devon walked to the entrance of the kitchen, and used the master key on the lock. The metal door creaked open slowly.

"Claire?" Demi called out softly. Gaining more confidence, she repeated herself, louder this time. "Claire!"

Nothing.

"They're not here…" She said. Devon could sense the disappointment in her voice.

"It's okay, Dem. We'll find them. Although I'm not sure we'll find much else here. I doubt Umbrella would just leave stuff lying around the kitchen."

"So," Demi inquired, "now where?"

"Well," Devon paused to think about the next course of action. "I think we should--"

He was cut off by a very loud, sharp gunshot.

"What was that?" Demi cried.

"I don't know, but it's close!" Devon grabbed her hand. "Come on!" The two then ran towards the sound of the blast.

****

"Mr. Jansen, sir!" A soldier with a pair of binoculars around his neck strided to the man in the three-piece suit, and stiffly saluted him. We've appeared to spot a couple of survivors nearing the north door of the Biology Building. One of them appears to be Claire Redfield, sir."

Karl Jansen suddenly became intrigued with what the young soldier had said.

"Are you sure?"

"Take a look for yourself, sir." The soldier gave the binoculars to the wide-jawed man.

"I'll be damned." In his sight was Claire Redfield, along with another girl, sneaking into the back entrance of the Biology Building. He saw two bright flashes of light erupt from her hand as she shot the lock off the back door, and heard the sound of gunshot nearly a second later. Suddenly, a much louder blast sounded across the campus, scaring Claire, the girl, and Jansen, all at the same time.

"And just what the hell was _that_?" Jansen scanned the area, seeking to find the source of the disturbance.

"I would believe it to be that soldier with the special orders to secure the campus, sir."

Jansen lowered the binoculars, and glared angrily at the soldier. "_Who?!"_

"Well…" The soldier swallowed painfully before regaining the courage to speak. "He told me that authorities had sent him to secure the condition on the grounds, sir."

Jansen stared coldly into the trembling man's eyes. "And you used your judgement to allow him on instead of my own…"

"Sir, I assumed you didn't want to be bothered--"

Jansen yelled right into the man's face. "_Would you just shut up?! Now, thanks to your keen 'judgement,' we now have an outside hazard working in our operation! It could be a S.T.A.R.S. member, for all we know! Jesus!"_ Jansen pulled his handgun from his concealed side holster, and aimed it at the horrified soldier's chest. "You've been relieved of your duty, soldier, due to lack of judgement, and frankly, just pissing the hell out of me." Jansen pulled the trigger, killing the man instantly. He quickly re-holstered the sidearm, and briskly walked to one of the numerous white vans. And picked up the radio microphone from the console. "We have a Code-2. I repeat: a Code-2 has been authorized. Squad "Charlie", meet at vehicle zero-one-five immediately." He threw the radio mike into the chair, and walked into the back of the van, picking up a magnum handgun, and an M-16, along with extra bullets and clips.

__

"I'm going to resolve this myself," he thought, as the squad began to materialize. Soldiers kept coming, until there were roughly twenty-five of them standing at attention in front of Karl Jansen.

"Men, we have at our hands a potentially hazardous situation. A recently discharged soldier has made the misjudgment of allowing an outside force of unknown origin onto the campus. We have no information regarding this individual, not even a physical description. Confront anyone living with extreme prejudice. Also, it has come to my knowledge that our forces have not neutralized Claire Redfield. Our mission is to eliminate both subjects before they can cause any damage to our actions. I will accompany you. Who is in charge here?"

A man hesitantly raised his hand. "I am, sir."

What's your name?"

"Tanner, sir. John Tanner."

Jansen walked over to the man, laying a hand on his shoulder. "John Tanner is no longer your authority. I am. You listen to me at all times. If you _do not_ follow orders, you will be killed. Understood?"

A collective 'yes sir' filled the air.

"Alright, let's go."

****

More shots split the silence. Demi and Devon ran out of the student center, guns drawn and ready for whatever might come their way.

"There!" Demi pointed to a silhouette of a person under a large oak tree backing away from five or six frantic zombies. The figure raised a shotgun in front of it, and fired, simultaneously killing all its opposition with one shot. The figure lowered its weapon, and stared down at the bleeding undead crumpled on the ground.

"Hey!" Devon yelled. He waved his hand high above his head to the mysterious person. In response, the person called back.

"Devon?"

Devon frowned, and absently put his hand back by his side. "Is that…?"

"What is it?" Demi asked nervously.

Devon didn't respond, but began to make his way through the sporadically placed zombies, firing a round at each of their heads. He heard the figure talk again.

"Damn, it is you."

"Jim?!" Devon made out the glowing end of his cigarette in the darkness, a major characteristic of his friend.

"Yep, that's me."

"Jim Bowman?!" Demi cried, somewhat bewildered.

Devon walked up to Bowman, and slapped him on the arm, almost unable to hide his excitement. "Wow, Jim! It's definitely been a while. What are you doing here?"

Bowman raised his hands at his sides, allowing Devon to see all the weapons he had brought with him. "What the hell does it look like? I'm saving your ass, that's what I'm doing."

"Oh." Devon simply said. "Thanks."

"Here." Jim handed Devon a large shotgun still slung across his shoulder. "This should be a little better than that damn pea-shooter you've been carrying around."

"Wow. Great." He admired his new weapon in between cautiously glancing towards the zombies beginning to stumble over to the group.

"And for the lady…" Bowman handed the M-16 he had swiped from the soldiers to Demi. She swallowed nervously at the firepower she was holding. "Well," Jim told her, "go on, try it out." He then pointed to a group of seven zombies beginning to make their way over.

"Jim, don't make her-" Devon was interrupted by the camouflaged man.

"Try it out, Demi."

She nervously held the machine gun at her side, as she had seen it done in movies, and fired at the group. The gun wildly flipped upward in a spray of gunfire, and it recoiled out of her hand, she screamed and jumped back as the gun hit the ground. Bowman smirked.

"You jerk, Bowman!" Demi yelled at him.

"Ah, shut up girl, it builds character."

"Come on, Jim." Devon raised the shotgun, finishing off the rest of the zombies coming their way. He turned to look back at Jim, as he pumped the shotgun. "How did you know?"

"I have my ways…" Jim trailed off, not quite wanting to tell Devon how he had known about the incident.

"Did the media start covering what was going on?"

"No, the media has no clue what's going on, outside of military lining the school. Of course, the military knows it's not their troops. Only the civilians are ignorant."

Devon looked around again nervously, before continuing the conversation. "So, that's how you know what's been going on? You being in the Air Force?"

"Nope." It was a simple answer that just irritated Devon to no end. Bowman had always done him that way.

"Well?" Devon growled, "You don't know what's going on then?"

"No, I do."

"What, then."

Jim sighed, giving in to Devon's persistence. "Okay. I've been keeping Umbrella under surveillance for God knows how long. They're a lot like organized crime. Everyone in the government _not_ callaborating with them suspects they're doing stuff, but no one can quite prove anything. They don't want to risk blowing their chances of bringing them down, so we wanted to catch them in the act. I hacked into their database, the old one at least, and I found out about their previous incidents. Even some of the government bastards are in with them, so I'm not sure who's clean and who's not."

"Jim…Who exactly do you work for?"

"Well, I can't tell you that right now, Devon. I would…But you know."

"Thanks for coming, Jim." Demi said, smiling. She felt even safer with two of her old friends with her, even if Jim wasn't a normal description of a 'friend.'

"Okay Devon. Here's what's going to happen." Jim was dead serious as he spoke. "We're going to kill stuff. We're going to kill a lot of stuff." Devon started smiling as Jim spoke. "And when all that stuff is dead, we're going to find more stuff to kill. Anyone else dressed like me, kill them."

Devon frowned. "What? I can't kill other soldiers."

"They're not normal soldiers, they're with Umbrella. If they knew what I was here for, then they'd kill me too."

"Why are you here? Jim?" Demi began to grow a bit uneasy.

"You'll find out soon enough."

___________________


	10. Chapter Ten

Familiar Hauntings

Chapter Ten

___________________

Claire and Bobbye dropped a few more stray zombies as they walked through a dimly lit corridor of the Biology Building.

"Maybe it was Devon?" The two girls had been discussing who it was that had fired the jarring blast.

"But where would Devon get a weapon like that? That was some sort of shotgun or something, from the way it sounded. Big firepower."

"So, who do you think it is?"

"…I don't know." Claire shook her head. "I guess it's not important right now. We have bigger things to be concerned with at the moment."

Their attention was brought to the situation at hand.

"Claire, I'm thinking that there's no other way to get to the basement other than that elevator. This is my third year here, and I've never seen another elevator in the building."

"Yeah, I think you're right." She looked at her watch. "It's almost four now. I say we just suck it up and find a way to reach that elevator." Bobbye was silent, so Claire continued. "Besides, it may be a lot easier getting to it from the back instead of the front entrance."

The two continued to walk down the corridor, killing a couple more of the undead. They rounded a corner, and as Claire was reloading her handgun, the main hall came into view. The collective moaning of the zombies could be heard echoing through the entire complex. They peeked into the room and saw that the majority of the zombies were in fact gathering at the front of the glass. There were only roughly twenty zombies in the thirty-foot stretch to the elevator. They appeared to just be standing there, oblivious to what was going on around them.

"We might be able to just move around the remaining zombies," Bobbye offered, her hand waving in front of her face in a futile attempt to clear the air of rotting flesh.

"There's still quite a few around there, though. Trust me, when they get agitated, they move in fast."

Bobbye halfway joked with her, as she fitted her scrunchie: a sure sign she was preparing for action. "You scared, Claire?"

"Yes, but I'm just being cautious at the moment."

"Good, because I'm scared to death. But I think that's our only way in there."

"Okay…" Claire trailed off, "How do we want to do it?

Bobbye was silent for a moment before hatching a sketchy plan. "Okay, I think I got it. I'll run up and press the button before they can react, and I'll run a bit closer to the front doors. That way, the remaining ones will follow me, and that will get them out of your way. When the doors open, find a way to lure them off me from behind. We should both be okay then. Just make sure those doors don't shut on us. Sound good?"

Claire halfway laughed at her friend. "That's a horrible, horrible plan, Bobbye."

Bobbye smiled back. "It'll do, though."

"Right. Okay, on three. Ready?"

Bobbye nodded.

"One…Two…"

Bobbye crouched into a track runner's three-point stance.

"Three!"

With that, she sprinted to the doors; her speed was no match for the lumbering undead. With only a few close grazes, she was at the elevator. She pressed the button, and ran towards the front doors. Even from Claire's position, she could hear Bobbye's every move due to the crunching glass beneath her feet. All the display cabinets had been destroyed; their contents spilled onto the tiled floor below. Bobbye turned on her heel in an attempt to avoid another of the zombies. She jogged into a clearing as the creatures began to close in on her.

"Claire! Go _now!"_

Bobbye had been successful; the path to the elevator had been cleared. She ran to the doors, but they had not opened yet. She pressed the button again for good measure, and went to go help out her friend. Fighting back her fear, she kicked one of the zombies that had been trailing Bobbye in the back. It stumbled forward, before sprawling out on the broken glass.

"Hurry, Bobbye! Get out of there!"

She looked around nervously. Claire's attempt at diverting their attention wasn't working. The rotting, outstretched hands were still seeking her. To make matters worse, the wave of zombies at the front door had seen her, and began shuffling after her from the other side. She could have sworn that the floor shook beneath her feet. Her mind raced furiously for a way out. To her surprise, she began running before she had decided what to do. Instinctively, she sprinted towards a group of zombies before sliding between them at the last second, out of the reach of their arms. She grimaced as she felt broken glass dig into the side of her right leg. She cursed herself as she rose to her feet, and sprinted around another group of zombies. As she ran, she fired her gun in front of her to clear a path for her to escape. However, much to her horror, she had tripped over something that caused her to go sprawling on the floor. Again, she felt the tearing of her skin from the glass. She looked back and gasped as she saw that the object she had tripped on were the remains of what looked like a man in a lab coat. He was cleaned straight to the skeleton; bits of stringy flesh that clung to the thin frame of bone were all that remained. She looked above to see an eager zombie toppling on top of her, and she rolled out of the way and froze just long enough to empty a couple of bullets into its head before she heard the startling clicking of her gun; the sound of an empty chamber. She leapt back onto her feet, and after dashing into one of the unsuspecting undead and spinning off it to avoid another group of three, she found that nothing stood between her and the elevator. As Claire motioned her over, her heart stopped at her latest realization: the elevator was still closed.

It was _still closed._

"What's the _problem?_" Bobbye asked, out of breath, "Why is it not open yet?!"

"I don't know!" Claire yelled back as Bobbye desperately pressed the button repeatedly, "I think it's stuck!"

"No…It _can't_ be stuck!" She turned, her back leaning on the doors, and she patted herself down for another clip for her handgun. She didn't find one. She was out. "Claire, do you have an extra clip I can borrow?"

Claire shook her head vigorously as she watched the wall of the living dead advancing on them at an alarming rate. It was then that they heard a shrill scream slice the atmosphere. Something was moving through the undead at an alarming rate, as limbs and gore were thrown into the air as if something was traveling below them. The girls' eyes were fixed on the carnage that was taking place. Claire drew her gun, waiting to see the culprit. The zombies stopped their advance on the girls to face the intruder among their own ranks. However, they did not attempt to attack the source. They simply stared, as if transfixed.

The hunter emerged, basked in red gore.

"You've got to be kidding me." Bobbye trailed off, as she instinctively searched for a clip on her body once again.

The hunter stood roughly fifteen feet away, staring at the girls with cold, sadistic eyes. For several seconds, it didn't move; it merely watched its prey as their fearful eyes locked with its own. It smirked, showing several yellow serrated teeth. It decided to let the prey have the first move, and then it would attack.

The crowd of the undead stood some five feet behind the hunter, apparently afraid of the beast. Then, one rather dense zombie ambled by, disregarding the reptilian monster in front of it. Its arms were outstretched to the girls, its eyes sunken back and pasty white. It began to twitch with anticipation as it passed by the reptilian humanoid.

The hunter cut its eyes at the creature.

With astounding speed, it leapt onto the zombie, tearing it to pieces within seconds. It then flipped off it, and stared at the crowd before returning its arrogant gaze back towards Claire and Bobbye.

__

"It's showing off," Claire thought, _"It's showing us what it's made of. It's trying to scare us."_ It was working. Claire swallowed hard; her gun fixed on the hunter's brow. She wasn't sure how many bullets she had left in her weapon; she just prayed it was enough to do what she needed to do. _"I always hate fighting these things without any real weapons,"_ she thought.

The familiar sound of the elevator rang out and the doors opened swiftly, causing the two to fall into the elevator and yell out at the unexpected event. It was then that the hunter made its move.

Within two bounds it was at the elevator. It was in the process of pouncing on top of them before Claire had managed to pull the shot off. The bullet struck it in the chest, causing it to change its trajectory just as it leapt off the ground for the kill. It slammed noisily into the external elevator console, shrieking and cursing the girl in the red jacket.

Claire shot again as Bobbye mashed the 'close doors' button in the elevator. The demon stumbled back, falling on its back and flailing. From what Claire could tell, she had shot it in the face, and she hoped it was enough for the kill. As the doors began to shut, the hunter cried out once again, and in a valiant leap, it stuck its giant clawed hand inside as it shut. The claws dug into the skin just below Claire's collarbone, and she hit the back wall, stunned. The elevator doors began to grind due to the strain, and the creature frantically worked its hand in pain, screaming all the while. Between the crack of the doors, Bobbye could see the bloody hole slightly above the creature's brow. However, the creature seemed to pay almost no attention to it. Bobbye began to kick at the side of the hunter's forearm in the aspirations of breaking it.

"Claire!" Bobbye yelled, "Kill it! Kill it!"

Still dazed, Claire raised her gun slowly and aimed it at its head once again, and pulled the trigger.

No bullet fired, however.

"Jesus!" Bobbye cried, as she beat the creatures limb incessantly. Claire slowly reached for the back of her head, still in shock, and when she pulled it back, she found spots of blood on a couple of her fingers. In her swirled vision, she saw the flailing arm of the hunter, and she heard the dull grinding of elevator gears. Bobbye yelled out to her, "Claire! What are you doing?! Help me out here!" Claire took her handgun, and proceeded to hit the monster with it. To make matters worse, the zombies had begun to advance and grope around for the two inside the elevator. Instead of one arm reaching inside, there were roughly fifteen. Fear and adrenaline fueled the girls' energy. Summoning her courage, Claire grabbed the monsters arm, and shoved it forcefully outside the elevator. She had succeeded in doing so, until all that remained were the last two inches of its claws, and the frantic fingers of the zombies. With one powerful kick, Bobbye shoved the claws out of the elevator, and the doors finally closed, severing off various zombie appendages in the process. The hunter emitted one final scream of defeat, before it began to relentlessly pound the outside doors in vain to open them up again.

Bobbye stood by the console, breathing wildly and staring at the appendages on the floor, and listening to the hunter's assault. "Wow, it worked."

Claire gingerly touched the back of her head. "You didn't think it would?"

Bobbye shook her head. "No, I didn't."

"That makes two of us."

"We're going to the basement floor then?" Bobbye said it as nonchalantly as possible.

"Unless you have somewhere else more important to be at the moment."

Bobbye smiled. "Basement floor it is." In a very disturbing and twisted way, she was beginning to enjoy beating the odds each time.

The elevator shook and jolted, and began its descent to the floor below.

****

"Jim, we have to find Claire and the other girls before we go!" Devon persisted. "I'm _not_ leaving them behind to die!"

"What the hell have I been telling you?" Jim growled back. "They're probably dead, Devon. Let's just do what we need to do and get out of here before we join them."

The three survivors walked across a grassy field surrounded by giant, one hundred year-old oak trees. They were nearing the Biology Building.

"And, what exactly is it that 'we're' supposed to do, Jim?" Demi's voice was quite defiant, a rarity for her demeanor.

"We've got to get a disk out of the BioLab in the basement, okay?"

"What disk?" Devon began to question his old friend's motives.

"It's not important, don't worry about it." Bowman was looking to end the conversation. Devon smirked as he mused to himself. _"If it's not that important, then why are we risking our lives to go down and get it?"_ Devon shook his head, as he began to reload his shotgun. The three circled wide around a slow moving bunch of zombies, paying them as little attention as possible. Demi had slightly tightened her grip on Devon's sleeve, however.

The reached the stairs of the front of the Biology Building, and marveled at the sheer number of the undead swarming the area where the elevator was located.

"Jim, there's too many of them. We're not going to be able to break through."

Bowman stared strangely at Devon. "What the hell are you talking about? Of course we will."

"We'll die!" Demi cried, "There's no way we can do that Jim. There must be fifty of those things." She looked at Devon. "Devon, I don't want to go. Please, let's find another way in."

"Damn it Demi!" Bowman cursed, "Stop being such a whiny bitch! Let's go!"

Devon had enough of his attitude. He stepped between Demi and Jim, slightly pushing the latter. His face was solid, menacing. "Now you listen to _me_, Jim. You _do not_ call Demi names. She has done nothing to you, she's just scared. I'm scared. I will _not_ sit back and let you do that, and if you do it again, we're going to have problems. Fact of the matter is, you haven't had to go through what we've been put through here in the past few hours. I've had way too many of my friends die, and right now, I'm _not _taking blind orders from you unless you give me a very good reason to. Right now, I don't want to go in there, risking my life, not to mention Demi's, if this 'disk' is for your own personal gain." Devon swallowed, as he stared into Jim's slightly taken-aback face. "Before we do _anything,_ I want you to tell me why you're after the disk. Something tells me that's the real reason you're here." Devon was silent, waiting for an answer.

Jim glared into his eyes, as they were still fighting through expression. Finally, Jim gave in. "You're wrong about my reasons to come down here. Yeah, the disk is important, but damn it, Devon, I came down to make sure you were okay. That was the most important thing to me. Besides, I have no one to keep me in line if you die, and I don't want to end up doing something stupid, so I need you around. We're best friends, right?" Jim's features lightened, as he tried to lead Devon away from the purpose of his visit.

"That's a nice story Jim, but I know that work comes first with you, it always has. Just tell me why you need the disk."

Jim threw his hand up in defeat. "Fine. Damn, you're persistent. Okay, well, I'm in the Air Force, as you know, but what I do there is a bit more confidential." Jim hated the idea of giving up some of his best secrets. "I work under a branch of the Air Force that deals with specialized military intelligence retrieval. The rest of the Air Force doesn't even know we exist, really. We cover up our true motives so the corrupt officials don't find out about us. Our job is to find out what Umbrella is up to, and put a stop to them before the screw over everyone. For a while, we were just like everyone else. We thought that Umbrella was just a pharmaceutical and chemical company. Truth is, they _are_, just not the types of pharmaceutics and chemicals that are exactly 'environmentally safe.'" Jim shifted his stare from Devon to Demi as he continued. "I got assigned to a new flight about a month ago, and got to meet a few people in charge of special tactics. The commander was impressed with my abilities, so he secretly 'recruited' me into the branch I work for now. We serve as the military link between the Air Force and the S.T.A.R.S., and the Air Force doesn't even know it.

"S.T.A.R.S…" Demi trailed off, "isn't that what Claire used to be in?"

"Claire who? Claire Redfield?"

"Yeah," Devon nodded. "She was in the S.T.A.R.S. for a while before her brother made her quit."

"Chris Redfield," Bowman said. "Tough as damn nails, that's for sure. He's one of those guys that'd I'd never want to mess with. I'm trying to get him to notice my skills so he'll move me into the S.T.A.R.S. That's where all the _real_ fun is, and that's one of the major reasons I'm down here. That and the disk."

Devon was about to say something but Jim interrupted him. "Yeah, you want to know what's on the disk. In all fairness, I'm not quite sure, because Umbrella switched to its new archive, and no one really knows how to break into it at the moment. But I did get into the old one, and apparently, your school and Karl Jansen of the Chicago branch of Umbrella had a little deal going on."

The same group of zombies they had evaded a few minutes earlier wandered towards the stairs after them. Jim casually put another cigarette into his mouth and lit it. Satisfied with that first drag, he brought his M-16 to eye level, firing round after round of lead into their brains. Satisfied they weren't getting up again, he continued his story as if nothing had happened.

"Apparently, your school has been helping Umbrella develop a new virus on the campus…Something called the Delta Virus. There were a couple of other ones before it, but this one's mutation rate is supposed to be off the scales. I haven't seen its advancements over the other ones yet, other than the creatures spawned from it are a little bit more resilient. Nothing drastic though. I'm beginning to think the Delta Virus is a failure. Anyway, I'm here to gather information on it, regardless. There are a lot of things that have gone on here that not even S.T.A.R.S. know about. So, I've got to find out what it is. I'm telling you the truth when I say that I don't know what's on the disk. Only Umbrella does. And if you don't hurry your ass up, we're going to be shot down by Umbrella themselves, because I'm sure they're around here somewhere trying to get the disk before we do. I'm sure my cover's blown, by now."

Devon and Demi simply stared at their friend. Devon had no idea what was really going on here. It was hard for him to process all the information in his current state, but he was convinced Jim was telling the truth. "Okay, Jim. I believe you. But, how are we going to get down there? Look at that in there." Devon pointed towards the mass of dead bodies inside.

"If there's any way possible we can avoid those guys in there…" Demi trailed off, her voice shaking from her anxiety.

"We'll be fine. Trust me." Jim reached into his pockets, handing Demi a few extra clips. I have enough firepower to be a small country, trust me. Devon pocketed a bunch of shells from Jim's backpack as Jim showed Demi how to reload a machine gun.

"You just pull this back here…feed this in…slam the cartridge into the gun like this, and there you go. Just be sure to hold on to it a bit better, and shoot it from the shoulder, not your waist."

She held the machine gun against her shoulder, and eyed Bowman for a look of approval. She dropped the gun back at her waist, allowing all its weight to fall on the shoulder strap. Devon smiled to her.

"Wow," he joked, "something about you holding that machine gun makes you look kinda…sexy." He was trying to lighten the mood for her.

She smiled back at him. "I think you just have weird taste."

"Maybe…But if that was the _only _thing you were wearing…_well!"_ In all fairness, he was only half-joking. However, she gave him that jaw-dropping look, as she always did if he said something uncharacteristic of himself. "Well, I _guess_ I _am_ pretty sexy…" She laughed at her own words. It was the little things like that which Devon found her to be irresistible.

"Well," Jim interjected, "I hate to be the one to break up this innuendo-filled party, but we've got some work to do…"

"Yeah," Devon said, "you're right. Is everyone ready?"

Demi swallowed and nodded as bravely as she could.

"Let's do it Devon." With that, Jim walked right into the Biology Building doors, kicking them open and shattering glass everywhere.

"Crap," Devon muttered as Jim opened fire on the opposing party. Jim was using a six-round .45 Colt revolver, and was popping the heads off the zombies he hit with ease. Slowly, the mass began to realize what was going on, and they started their clumsy advance on the new prey. Devon opened fire with his high-powered shotgun, bringing zombies down in groups of five or six at a time. Even Demi had the eyes of battle, her ferocious gaze being rattled about by the recoil of her weapon. Despite their already apparent losses the wave kept advancing.

"I'm going to thin them out from the other side!" Bowman yelled to his friends.

"What?!" Devon exclaimed. "How?!"

Jim smirked as he re-holstered his Colt and pulled out of his backpack something that looked like a stainless steel riot shotgun with nearly no barrel at all. Whatever it was, Devon was sure it was fairly illegal. "This is my baby. She'll do the job." With that, he fired the first shot, a splitting sound that seemed to shake the very atmosphere in the room. It mowed down a swath of zombies from the immediate vicinity, and he casually walked his way into the newly formed gore. As the zombies began to close on him, he fired again. He looked back to see his friends dumbfounded with his apparently foolish act of bravery. "Well, are you coming or not? I'm sure you don't want to be on the receiving end of this thing.

The couple was quick to follow behind him, clearing out any zombies from the sides that were too close to comfort. Jim shot a few more blasts, and then walked his way out of the rest of the masses, and spotted a predominantly green creature, which appeared to be wounded. "Wow," he said, in a monotone voice as he reloaded his gun. "I didn't know they had brought out hunters here. They apparently wanted someone dead."

"What is that?" Devon stared at the new creature, wide-eyed. "What is that!"

"It's a hunter. Watch out though. They tend to have a bad habit of killing people." With that, he shot it with his shotgun as Devon and Demi kept the zombies at bay. The hunter went soaring backwards from the blast, it's cry evidence of the damage it had suffered. Jim walked over to it as it desperately tried to right itself. Jim stood above the creature, and pointed the business end of his firearm at its face. The creature snarled with hatred in its eyes as Jim pulled the trigger, shattering the creature's skull. Demi attempted to reload her weapon as Devon did his best to keep the remaining zombies at bay.

"Hey, Dem!" he yelled to her, "I've only got a couple of shots left before I reload! Hurry with that gun!"

"I'm trying! I'm trying!" She fumbled around, turning the clip over in her hand, trying to remember which way the clip was fed into the weapon. At last, she heard the rewarding click of the reload, and she opened fire once again. As Devon fired the last of his shots and began to reload, Jim walked up between them. He calculated there were only fifteen or so left. This was easier than he had thought.

The three survivors stood their ground, and eradicated the last of the threats.

Bowman couldn't help but feel the surge of pure power and control run through his veins. He looked around the bullet-ridden room and its blood splattered walls. His eyes fell on the convulsing blood red floor. And he laughed to himself.

"We just did what a troop of Umbrella soldiers couldn't do." He kicked the remnants of one of the bodies. "Pathetic."

"Well, let's get down to the BioLab before the rest of Umbrella comes looking for us, okay?" Devon checked his environments for any other threats. He was sure that much attraction would attract _something,_ be it human or not.

Demi walked to the elevator, and pressed the button. The three waited to enter the area containing most of Umbrella's new secrets, and Jim, along with his friends, were about to claim them.

___________________


	11. Chapter Eleven

Familiar Hauntings

Chapter Eleven

______________

"Yes sir," Jansen said as he received orders over a satellite phone. He sat in the passenger seat of one of the unmarked vans that had surrounded the campus. The camouflaged driver sped around the city blocks at dangerously high speeds for such a large vehicle, yet thankfully the roads were still nearly deserted. The man over the phone continued to bark orders to Jansen. "Yes sir. Ms. Redfield is still alive, and she was spotted going into the Biology building a few minutes ago. No doubt she's onto something, sir."

The driver cautiously looked over to the thick-jawed man out of the corner of his eye, before returning his gaze just in time to take another ninety-degree corner. The sound of the tires losing friction over the road ensued.

"She was with another girl when I got a visual, but since then reports have come in that another group of three have entered as well, and one of them may appear to be the agent that evaded security a little while ago."

The overhead streetlights blurred by them, causing the light source to examine Jansen's menacing facial features. His eyes were stone, and his face sullen.

"Yes sir, we're on our way to the underground hangar now, where we'll intercept them from behind. We have another group at the civilian entrance above ground waiting for them in the event we flush them out. There'll be nowhere for them to go." He swallowed hard, as the soldier in the driver's seat heard a man's voice cutting the air, his voice tinny over the small built-in speaker. Jansen spoke once again. "Don't worry. I'll take care of this, President Wesker. It won't get out of hand." With that, he flipped a switch, and the phone connection went dead.

There was a silence between the two men for some time; only the sounds of rising rpm's and squealing tires were heard. Jansen finally looked toward the nervous soldier. "Do you think we could get there a bit faster?"

****

Demi was quite a bit taken aback by how long the elevator ride actually was. They had been riding for almost a minute, and she wasn't sure if they were just going really slow, or if they were actually headed much deeper than a basement floor. Devon had managed to make his way over to Demi, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. She imagined it was to control her trembling, but she couldn't help wrapping hers around his waist. He placed the top of his head on hers and closed his eyes, and she was lost in the warmth his body released.

Bowman chuckled to himself as he took the first drag of yet another cigarette. He shook his head as he blew a cloud of smoke to the ceiling. He noted the bright fixtures in the elevator. It wasn't drained of power like the rest of the campus, which meant it was running off a different power source. He cocked an eyebrow in thought. _"Perhaps this Lab will be a bit more elaborate than I thought."_

Devon had one thing on his mind: how much longer all this was going to last. He felt he was too tired to even think straight, and it seemed the only thing that kept him going at this point was Demi. He had to find a way for her to escape, and he wouldn't let anything hurt her. He was lost in the moment and his own thoughts, as he subconsciously felt the quick pulse of Demi's heart through his own chest.

Suddenly, the elevator shook and the lights flickered, much to everyone's surprise.

"What the hell was that?" Jim said, as he looked around.

Demi's grip tightened around Devon once again. "What was it?"

With a hydraulic 'hiss,' the heavy iron doors of the armored elevator moved apart. The three stared into the BioLab. Everything seemed to be made of stainless steel, creating a sterilized look to the high-tech laboratory.

The elevator shook again, this time, accompanied by a loud metallic sound, much like a baseball bat hitting a metal pole.

Devon swallowed hard. "I think that's our cue to get out of here…"

Bowman did what he did best, and swore. "Damn Umbrella…" He looked to the ceiling, which appeared to be the source of the sound. "They're onto us now, and we don't have much time. Let's go."

The three walked rather quickly into the small ID room. There was a sleek looking door, which look much like the elevator's, save for the interlocking architecture where the door opened. To the side, was a small panel for an ID card and a numerical pad, no doubt for unlocking the door. Two small reflective windows accompanied the sides of the door, which Devon assumed were magic mirrors. Other than that, the room was bare, save for a few steel chairs joined together, and a small check-in counter, that was vacant at the time.

Bowman walked over to the keypad. "Damn. Anyone got a card?"

"No," Devon replied, his voice devoid of enthusiasm of any kind. "Geez, what's next? Are we stuck here, or what?"

Demi walked over to one of the mirrors, and cupped her hands over her eyes, straining to see through it. However, it was no use; she was only looking into her own deep eyes. She began to knock on it to see if she could get any sort of response. After waiting a minute, she turned back around to the guys. "Now what?"

Silence.

"Jim?" Devon finally ventured. "Any ideas? You know how to hack into Umbrella's files, can't you get past this lock?"

Bowman shot Devon a glaring look. He didn't like the way Devon had worded that, as if he doubted his abilities. He walked forward towards the panel. "Yeah, I got an idea." He brought his shotgun to his hip; the barrel aimed at the small pad.

"What are you doing?!" Demi yelled. "What if it breaks it?"

"Got a better idea, Demi?" Bowman yelled back to her.

Suddenly, the doors opened up on their own, and a certain girl with a brown ponytail and a leather jacket was on the other side, smiling.

Demi was the first to speak her name. "Claire!" She ran up and hugged her, much to Claire and Devon's surprise.

"H, hello Demi. I'm glad you're still alive." Claire cracked a small but genuine smile.

Demi's eyes shone brightly at her friend's. She said nothing, but simply smiled.

"I take it Devon's been watching over you?" She raised an eyebrow. The truth behind her words was only known to Demi.

"Yeah, um," she stuttered as she ran her hand through her rose hair, which was still amazingly in place. "I took your advice with him, Claire."

She winked at Devon. "That's good to know. But we'll deal with small talk later. Right now, things seem to be looking up a bit. Come on in, and I'll show you what we've found out."

The three followed Claire through the enforced doors, and down a small, sleek hallway. Light fixtures were built into the edges of the room, basking the entire corridor in a brilliant light. As Jim looked around in the adequate light, he saw just how tired everyone was. Devon had dark bags under his eyes and his face was pale. Demi seemed as if she was going to fall asleep at the first opportunity she could get. Even Redfield, the youngest of the mighty Redfield clan, seemed to be faltering due to the night's circumstances. Yet, she still managed to keep that sharp, alert look to her. Jim knew she was still ready for anything that would come their way. He took that time to talk to her.

"So, you're Redfield, huh?"

She frowned as she eyed him. "And who exactly wants to know?"

"Relax, I'm an…acquaintance of your brother. And Devon's best friend."

"You know my brother huh." She seemed skeptical to Bowman.

"I just said I did, didn't I?" Bowman cut his eyes at her.

Claire returned the look with one of her own. "Okay, I don't care who you are, don't get smart with me right now."

"Well hell, it wouldn't be a problem if you'd understand stuff the first time I said it."

Devon shook his head as Claire spun around to meet Bowman's face. "I should have known this would have happened, with their personalities…" Devon frowned as he shifted Demi's arm from around his bicep to his hand.

"Listen to _me,_ whoever you are,"

"Bowman. Jim Bowman." He smirked.

"Don't cross me, _Bowman._ I may be a girl, and I may be tired, but I know I could beat you into a bloody pulp right now, if I wanted to."

Bowman lightly chuckled, testing Claire's patience. He had only intended to joke around with her, but judging by her reactions, she was taking it the wrong way. He decided to end it there before she really did beat the crap out of him. She shook her head, and continued walking forward. "It's so not worth it right now." She reached the end of the corridor, and there was another door much like the last one stopping their progress. Claire swiped a card, followed by a quick eight-digit pass number, and the doors slowly opened.

"Welcome to the BioLab, everyone."

It was a facility that seemed out of place with the rest of the campus. The campus itself was a very traditional setting, typical of college campuses. Brick buildings, large stone pillars, and massive oak trees were the norm. Here, in the BioLab, it simply had forsaken everything about its outward appearance. It seemed everything was awash with a silver glint, which made the room actually appear to be glowing with its own radiance. The group was actually on a wire walkway that overlooked the entire complex. Under them, to the left and right of the large room were thin desks that were home to many large workstations, many of which were shut down or on standby. A large hangar door was positioned on the left of the room between the row of supercomputers. There were chairs strewn about, lying on their sides and in the middle of the aisle below them. The four moved across the walkway, and the new arrivals darted their eyes around the room, taking in the architecture. A loud electronic hum blocked out all sound that was over twenty feet away.

"So _this_ is where all our tuition went the entire time." Devon half-joked. "Amazing."

They descended a spiral staircase that brought them down to floor level. The room dropped off a few stairs in front of them, accentuating the importance of the control center that lay in the middle of everything. In front of it, operating as best she could, was Bobbye.

"Damn. Who's she?" Bowman glanced at the blonde girl as she typed away at the keyboard, bringing up image after image of DNA strains, enlarged viral specimens and the like. She casually rested her head against the side of her gun as she eyed the remaining scientists that were huddled next to the computer.

"That would be Bobbye Larson. A piece of work if I ever saw one." Claire replied.

Devon's eyes scoured the room. "Claire…where's Bethani?"

Claire shook her head, looking at the ground. "She didn't make it Devon. A hunter got her before we knew what was going on."

Devon blinked his eyes in disbelief. "Another one?" It was a chopped statement that formed in his shocked mind. Claire seemed to understand, as she nodded, bit her lip, and breathed, "Yeah."

Bobbye sighed in frustration as she hit another password restriction. "Okay, someone get me through this again."

A thin-framed scientist with wire glasses quietly spoke. "Um…Miss? You see, the man in charge of that has already tried to escape. He left through the hangar entrance about thirty minutes ago." He nervously eyed the gun the entire time he was speaking to her.

She cut her eyes at him. "Hangar entrance?"

He pointed to the massive doors on the left side of the room behind them with a shaky hand. "In there. I don't know where he's at."

"Why didn't you leave with him?"

"Because we caught sight of a specimen in there, and we don't have any firepower to defend ourselves."

"What type of specimen?"

"It's called a hunter. It's a large, green humanoi-"

"I know what it is," Bobbye interrupted.

"We figure he's dead."

"And he's the only one that knows the password?"

"Yes ma'am."

She motioned the scientist over with her gun. When he froze in terror, she used her other hand. "Come on, I'm not going to hurt you. Right now, at least. I might if you can't find a way to get around that checkpoint. Get on it."

"Y, yes ma'am." With that, he began typing away at the keyboard; a flurry of screens popping onto the monitor.

"Damn," Bowman said somewhat loudly. "You see Devon, you should take control the way _she _does. That's how it's done."

Bobbye turned around, and her expression changed to delight as she saw the new additions to the BioLab. "Devon!" She walked over to him, and gave him a small hug. "I'm glad you're not dead."

"Me either," he said. It was the only thing he could think to say in his state.

"Who's this guy?" She said, motioning to Jim with her gaze.

"Trouble." Claire said sharply.

"This is Jim Bowman. He came down to find a disk here." Devon said flatly.

"No, I came to save you!"

"Drop it, Jim." Devon knew that Jim was glad he was alive, but they both knew he would have come down regardless, for that disk.

"I'm Bobbye Larson." She stretched her hand out to him.

"I know. Claire told me." Bowman looked at her hand for a minute, as if he was deciding whether or not it was worth shaking. After a second or two, he obliged.

Claire was surprised he hadn't let loose with some off-hand, snide remark as he was mentioning her.

"So, what's going on here?" Devon asked.

"Okay, here's what's up." Bobbye used an all-business tone, but Devon could pick up the excitement behind her words. "We come in, and these little guys are working away on these computers. We hold them up, and threaten them with their lives until they get us to where we want to be in the system. We root around in the mainframe for awhile, and stumble across the goods. Turns out, this _is_ the Delta Virus, and it's not quite the flop it appears to be. On the surface, it's almost no different than the T-Virus, except for the rate at which it mutates its victims."

Something she had said caused an image of Lori to flash sharply and painfully in Devon's head, and he winced and turned away. Demi looked up at him, but said nothing. She simply stared into his eyes and kissed the side of his cheek comfortingly.

"So, there _is_ a difference between them?" Bowman said, intrigued. Claire shot him a look, surprised that he knew what he was talking about.

"Yeah, there is. Just before I hit this checkpoint, I found out there's a second stage to this thing."

"Second stage?" Claire's heart skipped a beat. "What is it?"

Bobbye shrugged. "I don't know. I got shut out before I knew what it was. It shouldn't be too much longer."

"Miss, I wouldn't say that."

Bobbye turned to meet the scientist. "And why's that?"

"Because there's millions of possibilities of where the back door might be. I don't have any idea where to begin looking." The scientist began to grow somewhat sharp, and Bobbye glared through him.

"You better find it soon. We don't have all day here, and if you don't, it's your life I'm taking." Of course, Bobbye was bluffing, but with her holding the gun, it was one that the scientist wasn't going to call. He quickly spun back around in his chair and began typing with renewed vigor. 

"Are you using the backup disk for the mainframe at the moment?" Jim asked

"I didn't know there was one." Bobbye replied.

"Well, there is." Bowman turned to the white-coated men. "Someone give me that disk, or I'll kill every one of you."

"Wow," Devon replied. "Jim is unusually mean tonight."

"I'll say," Demi added. She then leaned over and whispered into Devon's ear. "Do you think he's bluffing?"

Devon's reply caused Demi's eyes to widen nervously. Devon returned the look with a solemn nod and raised eyebrows.

"What are you talking about?" one of the two lab technicians in the corner had said. Bowman glared at him, and fired his shotgun straight into the air and quickly pumped it in a hostile manner. Ricochets sounded all around the room, before part of the blast embedded in a computer on standby. Demi screamed at the sudden sound, and grabbed onto Devon's waist. Sparks showered the floor in the distance.

"Next time, I won't miss."

The scientist remained motionless, his features tense. Slowly he reached into his pocket, pulling out a small object that looked like a microchip from his coat pocket. Jim walked over and grabbed it out of his hand. He inspected it for almost a minute, then satisfied it was the right one, he shoved it into the pocket of his uniform.

After watching the spectacle, Bobbye turned back to her friends. "In the meantime, maybe some of us should look for that scientist. It'd be the easiest way to get through this thing, I imagine."

"I'll go," Bowman said quickly. "Where's he at?"

"He's in the hangar," Bobbye said. "At least that's what this guy tells me. Apparently, there's a monster in there too, so watch out, comrade." Bowman frowned at Bobbye's word choice, but decided against saying anything. Devon simply smiled.

"He _left_ through the hangar." The other scientist in the corner corrected her.

Bowman pointed a condemning finger at him. "You shut up." Without another word he turned and left the group, and walked towards the hangar doors. "Be on the lookout for Umbrella, Devon. They _are_ coming. Do what you do best, and protect your friends."

"You just worry about yourself, Jim." Claire yelled to him. She wasn't too fond of him at the moment, but if he died, that was one less person to help them out of here.

"So, it's coming down to the wire, huh?" Demi said as she watched the door they had entered from.

"I guess so," Devon began to feel nervous again at the thought of more fighting. It was odd; he didn't think he could feel emotion anymore. "Just stay with me, okay? I don't want to lose you again."

"You won't." She kissed him softly, before slightly pulling away, only to kiss him again. Claire took it upon herself to keep the scientists under control, and she left the two of them alone.

"Devon." She breathed. When she caught his deep, longing gaze, she continued. "I don't want you to take this the wrong way, or make you think I'm crazy or something, but…" She swallowed hard, finding the words to go on. "If tonight hadn't happened the way it…did, I don't think we'd be together like this. Because I was scared. I was really scared of you, and I didn't want to go any deeper than what we were."

"Why?" He was somewhat hurt by her words.

"Because…I don't know why. I really don't. But I'm…" She lost her thoughts for a moment, before pushing through her feelings. "I'm glad that I went through all this, though. Because it made me strong enough to be with you, and I love being here, like this. Now, I can't tell why I had waited so long." When Devon said nothing, she re-evaluated what she had said. "I'm not saying I've enjoyed tonight, but as bad as it's been, good stuff has come out of it. I hope you understand what I'm saying."

"No, I do. I feel the same way. It's just that-" Devon was interrupted by a yelling voice.

"_Hey!"_ It was Jim.

"What?!" Devon yelled back, somewhat annoyed at Bowman for ruining their moment.

__

"I need the damn pass code for this damn door!"

Devon shifted his annoyed glance to Claire. "Claire, do you know it so he'll shut up?"

She turned and 'talked' with the scientists before turning back towards Bowman and yelling out, "Eight, four, two, six, three, five!"

In the distance, Bowman entered the number, and the rewarding sound of large electronic doors opening sounded through the area. He disappeared behind the corner.

"Do you think he'll be back?" Claire said. "He's got what he came for, he could just up and leave us high and dry."

"No, Jim won't-" Devon stopped himself in mid-sentence. Would Jim do that? He wasn't sure. "I don't think even Jim would leave his friends behind."

"Well, _I'm _not his friend at the moment." Claire's experience with Bowman so far had not been a pleasurable one. She watched as the oversized doors closed behind him, before looking at Devon.

"I don't know why he's acting the way he is tonight. Normally, he's…tolerable. It may just be the circumstances. This can have quite an effect on people."  
"Let's hope so, for his sake."

****

The pounding continued against the reinforced doors of the elevator. It was loosening the strength and condition of the armored doors, and it shook the air in the room with each forceful blow. The outside appearance of the doors began to bulge out, and soon enough, the tip of a large claw tore through the steel structure. With amazing strength, the side of the door was slowly shoved away, and the sound of metal grinding against metal could be heard. The door moved aside, and a large nine-foot beast stepped through the small portal. It stood completely erect, and looked around the room, it's small, vacant eyes taking in its surroundings. The unmanned desk to the left. The sleek glowing structuring in the room. The cold metal doors. It was almost nostalgic to the behemoth. It brought the claw out to the side, and rushed the smaller door in front of it, spraying sparks from the door with a mighty upward swipe with his giant scythe-like claw. Again and again he pounded the door, slowly progressing to the BioLab, and to where his prey would be.

___________________


	12. Chapter Twelve

Familiar Hauntings

Chapter Twelve

_____________________

The troop of soldiers steadily made their way towards the front entrance of the Biology Building, eradicating any zombies that may impede their progress. There were almost twenty of them altogether, and there wasn't really anything on the campus that could cause them much harm. The undead had begun to spread out evenly among the campus, and the staccato of gunfire was heard around the perimeter as Umbrella's forces put down anyone within fifty yards. The zombies were losing ground.

With stealth-like movement, the lead soldier drifted over to the door in his crouching stance, with his support following suit behind him. He stepped through the broken glass entrance, and was somewhat taken aback with what he saw. Countless zombies lined the floor, twitching and convulsing on top of each other. Many had limbs blown off, while a few had their heads cleanly blown off, no doubt from higher firepower. He gave a signal, instructing his men to stay on guard as they began to step through the hordes. His eyes were locked on a green, bloodied hunter, which was severely wounded from the previous fight, he had imagined. It looked up at the crew with intense hatred in its eyes, yet it lacked the strength to move or attack. It was dropped on one of its knees, with one of its clawed hands resting on the other. Blood was flowing freely from the bullet wounds on its body, and its breathing was raspy and labored. The soldier in charge lifted his M-16 at eye level, setting the laser sight on the animal's chest. The creature simply stared at the red dot on its chest, and stared into the man's eyes, and waited.

Three quick bursts of fire found their mark.

As the creature slumped over, the soldier radioed Jansen, looking around the perimeter of the room.

"Charlie team to Jansen, over." The soldier waited for a few seconds before he got a reply from his contact.

"This is Jansen, over."

"We've secured the premises of the upper floor entrance. We're waiting by the elevator for further instructions, over."

"You have no further instructions." Jansen's voice was becoming less audible due to the crackling white noise in the background. "Just wait there in case they retreat back up the elevator, over."

"Sir," the soldier tried his best not to anger his superior. "I don't think they'll be coming back up this way. This elevator up here is completely destroyed. There's no way it'd be able to get through these doors. We think the tyrant is down there, over." The two metal sidings had been completely bashed in, save for a three foot slash in the middle of the demolished material.

"I was counting on that. Our estimated time of arrival to the underground hangar is three minutes. Hold your ground up there until we're sure they're dead. I want to make sure they stay trapped. Jansen out." The white noise abruptly stopped as Jansen turned off his radio.

****

Bowman's footsteps echoed along the cold steel floor of the underground hangar. There was almost no light in the corridor, which would make it much harder for him to spot the creature before it was too late. Rows of white vans similar to the ones imprisoning the campus were on either side of the dark hallway, the two rows continuing up the ramp of the hangar for an impressive distance. He looked at his watch before quickly casting a wary eye on his surroundings. He was in the middle of the tunnel, and there was nothing around him for twenty feet on each side.

__

"At least here the hunter can't sneak up on me."

He continued forward, glancing between the vans for anything out of the ordinary. He noted that the corridor continued in front of him at an elevated grade for quite a while, but couldn't judge how long the tunnel actually continued due to the darkness. However, using the small amount of light that was available to him, he concluded that the tunnel continued for some time. Wherever they were at the moment, they were deep underground. He stopped, and cocked his head to listen. After a while, he began walking again, after hearing nothing except the low humming of electrical devices. A crumpled figure next to one of the many vans to the left caught his attention. He squinted at his new interest, and slowly began to make his way towards it, making sure to look in every possible direction.

__

"Just come out, you bastard."

He nervously fingered the trigger of his shotgun as he kicked the body over.

__

"This must be the scientist that tried to take his chances."

He cautiously searched the bloodied corpse for anything that might be of use. After finding nothing, he casually stood up and sighed - Just in time to see a bladed reptilian hand screaming towards his face.

"Shit!"

He rolled along the floor out of the way of the claw, but not before the creature nicked him with its hind legs, slashing him along the right side of his rib cage. He quickly stood up and fired at the hunter, barely missing. He pumped his shotgun. The hunter took the time to rush him with another assault again, and effectively succeeded in knocking the gun from his hands. The clank of metal on metal reverberated against the walls, and slid out of Bowman's view. Bowman slowly backed into the middle of the room, venomously eyeing the beast. It snarled in preemptive victory, showing rows of serrated teeth.

"You're not done with me, you ass." Bowman quickly unsheathed his combat knife from his belt. Adrenaline consumed the emotions of his mind, and he flicked the knife around in front of him in an arrogant manner. Bowman was ready for a fight, the challenge dominating the fear in him. Bowman wasn't quite sure how long he could last without a real weapon, but felt confident in his abilities in a melee fight. "Come on!" He yelled through gritted teeth. "Come on!"

Still grinning, the creature crouched low and screeched with a deafening pitch. It lunged forward, its left arm raised above its head. Jim tossed the knife into his left hand and jumped out of the way. The claw missed by mere inches, and he swiped his left hand behind him, cutting a gash into the creatures left forearm. It shrieked in pain, and before Jim could completely recover, it thrust its right claw into Bowman's back. He cried in pain, and swung his knife around in counterattack, stabbing the animal deep into the left pectoral. It was enough for the hunter to pull back and re-evaluate its strategy. It tore its claws out of Bowman's back, which sent him staggering forward a couple of steps. He turned around and winced, shooting daggers at the beast. Slowly, he stood upright, ignoring the pain he felt through the adrenaline. "Well, come on!" He yelled. "You better not be giving up already! I'm not done kicking your ass!" The hunter twisted up its face, and crouched back into its fighting stance. However, it didn't attack. It appeared to be more cautious than before. Bowman smirked. "That's right. You better rethink things through." Bowman leaned forward and feigned an attack against the animal, testing its reflexes. Then he yelled a guttural war cry, and leapt towards the monster. The creature remained motionless until Bowman was directly on him. It then leapt forward with its powerful hind legs, spearing Bowman right out of the air. He hit the floor hard with his back, temporarily knocking the air out of him. The creature stared into his eyes, and with a demonic grin, plunged its claws deep into his shoulder. Bowman twisted underneath the creature in pain and cried out. For a second or two, the creature made no other effort to silence him; it simply stared into his worn eyes, waiting for Bowman to say or do something.

__

"You bitch."

With another victorious smirk, it lifted its other claw high in the air, with the intentions of cleanly decapitating its victim in one fluid swipe. However, it never did finish its attack. When the creature reared back, Jim tactfully stabbed the creature under its armpit, and dragged the knife down, across its ribs, into its stomach, through many of the creature's vital nerves. The creature fell backwards and began convulsing; the only thing keeping it from hitting the ground was its embedded limb in Bowman's shoulder. He gritted his teeth and kicked it in the abdomen as hard as he could, ripping his body free from the monster's. He rolled over and recoiled in pain, before slowly picking himself up on one knee. Beads of sweat rolled down his face, and he wiped them away, mixing them with his blood. He slowly staggered to his feet, and stumbled over to the creature; its movement slowing down due to the shock its body had received. Blood poured out of its wound freely and copiously, and it looked up at its dominator with glazed eyes. With distant eyes of his own, Bowman frowned, and in one quick swipe, he severed he animal's jugular, and finished the deed. He walked away, leaving the hunter to die. He shook his head, worn out from the fight, but still trying to think rationally. His eyes slowly followed over the row of vans, and he slowly made his way over to one of them, opening the door and climbing inside. It took quite a bit of effort for him in his state, yet he shrugged it off as best he could.

__

"Damn hunter."

He checked the ignition for the keys, and when he didn't find any, he proceeded to look in the console, only to find a numeric keypad of sorts. He then looked in the ashtray. The floormats. The glove compartment. The driver's visor. Bingo.

He grabbed a single key underneath a cloth flap of the visor and thoughtfully looked over it.

__

"This right here is my ticket out of this place."

No sooner did he put it in the ignition did a low rumbling shake the seat of the van. He peered through the front window to see a distant speck of daylight shining from the darkness. Bowman raised his eyebrows, surprised the hangar was as long as it was. From that, two sets of vehicle lights began to speed down the grade, lightly illuminating Bowman's features. Periodically, he heard the resounding sound of screeching brakes.

__

"Damn. Umbrella."

At a loss of what to do, Bowman lay in the seat, hoping that they wouldn't find him just yet. He heard the vans drive by slowly, and stop in front of the entrance to the Lab.

__

"Just keep cool, Jim. Just keep cool. Devon, be ready. They're here."

****

"Miss, I've found it!" Relief was evident in the scientist's voice as he looked at Bobbye with tired eyes.

Bobbye stopped her conversation with her group of friends to see what the man had found.

"This right here shows all the files under Mr. Olsen's jurisdiction." When Bobbye stared at him, he explained himself further. "Olsen was the scientist that left through the hangar earlier."

"Oh."

The other three survivors had begun to gather around Bobbye and the screen as well.

"What is all this?" Claire asked impatiently. She was staring at a garbled mess of words on the screen that meant nothing to her at all.

"This is…" Bobbye began, but soon trailed off, losing herself in the screen configuration. "Here," she pointed to the screen. "Go here."

The scientist typed: GOSEC DIR DEL VI BETA

A screen popped up, showing the now familiar strain of the original Delta Virus. "This is the Delta Virus in its alpha state." The strain itself looked like a bunch of conjoined pollen particles to Claire, with small spikes shooting forth from a decidedly ovular body. The scientist clicked a button, and the strain began to rotate in real-time.

"What is it about this virus that makes it mutate people faster than the others?" Claire questioned.

When the scientist was hesitant to answer, Bobbye shoved her handgun into his stomach. "Answer her question." For a second, Devon thought the man was going to pass out in fear. "I don't want you to make this any harder on us than it's already been." Her tone was demanding, unwavering. "Now, why does this virus mutate people faster."

He swallowed hard. "Well, due to the makeup of its molecular anatomy, the Delta Virus creates a cover that fools the cells of the host into thinking that it's a form of energy that needs to be broken down. Cells absorb it willingly, and that is when the virus drains the cell of most of its energy. It uses the added energy to grow, reproduce and move around the host's body until it has successfully achieved near-total contamination. While it doesn't completely destroy the cells, it takes as much energy as possible from it while still being able to control the body. And to top it off, the white blood cells are never aware of any danger at all, so they are never even used. There's nothing in a person's body that slows down the spread of this virus."

"That's horrible…" Demi trailed off, completely lost in the twirling strain of the Alpha version.

"So, what's the second stage of the virus do?" Devon frowned at the thought of a second stage being more lethal than this one.

"Well, see," The scientist started, "we ourselves aren't even quite sure yet. That's why the virus is still a prototype.

"Well, tell us what you know."

The man typed a few letters on the keyboard, and the brown strain of the Delta Virus began to shift to a dark purple color. "The Delta Virus doesn't always necessarily destroy tissue. You can form it to almost however you see fit. All the previous viruses followed this rule. Decaying zombies, and very healthy, lively hunters both were created from the same virus. The decay is simply the natural course of the virus without intervention. Obviously, hunters and tyrants and the like weren't created from people. They were all created under close supervision by Umbrella employees. One can direct the course of the virus via electric information that it intercepts, much like telling a child what to do, and what not to do. Instead of absorbing energy from the cells and ultimately deteriorating them, it can also exchange energy, which mutates the cell in the direction we see fit. There is no biological entity we couldn't create with the flexibility of this new virus."

"Oh my God…" Claire gasped.

The man ignored her and continued, obviously proud of what they had been accomplishing. "The old viruses could do this too, but the beautiful thing about this virus is that when it's combined with a specific chemical, it is able to transfer cellular energy faster than any other process on the planet. The DV1 chemical accelerates that transfer rate to various parts of the hosts body, wherever it's needed at the time."

Devon shook his head. "So, what does that mean exactly?"

The scientist began to grow impatient. "It _means_ it can adapt muscle strength on the fly. If it is being attacked, it can focus energy on the abdomen or arms, and use it as defense. Things like that. Of course, muscle strength is the only thing the chemical converts right now, but the potential is amazing. Eventually, we could create a perfect being with this stuff."

Claire began to grow very pale. "Just…just stop…talking. Please." She shook her head, and her heart began to race. She couldn't imagine Umbrella creating atrocities much worse than what she had seen, yet what the man had said seemed to be true. Bobbye was still flipping around information on the computer, until she saw something else that caught her eye.

She typed: GOSEC DIR DEL VI ANTI

As she typed, Demi perked her head up, and cocked it to the side, listening intently.

"What is it, babe?" Devon murmured.

She opened her mouth slightly, as if she was going to speak, then frowned. She continued to listen.

"Demi, what is-"

"I heard gunshot," she interrupted.

Claire looked toward the two of them. "Bowman must have found the hunter…do you think he'll be alright?"

Devon looked towards the doors intently and slowly nodded. "Yeah," he confirmed, "Jim will be fine."

About then, Bobbye leapt up out of her chair, and ran to a laser printer, where page after page of words were shot out at high speed.

"What's that, Bobbye?" Claire asked.

"Oh," she beamed, "Just the cure for the Delta Virus."

"What?!" Devon yelled. "The thing has a cure?"

"Sure does."

The scientist interrupted the high-spirited conversation. "Yeah, and that's the reason why the virus was set loose on the campus. Your school crossed Umbrella, so they took appropriate action."

"They weren't supposed to develop a cure?" Claire frowned.

"No, they were only supposed to help cultivate the virus. Developing a cure was a breach of contract, and Umbrella doesn't take kindly to breach of contract. Jansen ordered a quarantine around the campus, and poisoned the food of the students as punishment."

"That's so sick." Claire shook her head. "The students had nothing to do with it!"

"Hey, don't look at me. It's not like I was the one who did it."

"Well…" Devon interjected, "We got the cure now, that's all that matters. I assume it doesn't reverse the effects, just stops them, right?"

"Of course," the scientist scoffed. "It can't just magically repair lost tissue."

Devon's thoughts turned to Lori once again, and his bloodied hand began to throb, painful underneath the cloth wrapping. "If only we could have gotten down here sooner. We could have saved her. I could have…" He trailed off, back into his thoughts.

"Devon, don't do that." Claire said. "That type of stuff happens. There wasn't anything you could do about it."

'How do you know that?!" he yelled. "She was with me, and I was responsible for her! She was one of my best friends, and I'm just supposed to accept what happened to her? I'm sorry, but I just can't." He clenched his teeth and whitened his knuckles, as he felt liquid pain seep between the shattered bones. He continued, his tone much softer. "I couldn't keep her safe, no matter how bad I wanted to. I just wasn't strong enough."

"Okay," Claire sighed, "If you want to sit there and wallow in self-pity, that's fine by me. But you've done a lot more than most people in your situation would have done. I don't want to hear you talking yourself down in this situation, because that will be what gets you killed. We all have things we're dealing with right now, but you can't let them cloud over what you _need_ to be doing."

When Devon was silent, she continued. "What you feel is normal, Devon. I do understand how you feel. But don't let it interfere with what you need to do right now. Maybe you owe it to yourself to feel that pity, but just don't do it right now."

He nodded meekly. "Yeah, you're right. Thanks Claire."

"Don't thank me, just do what you need to."

Claire began to grow uneasy. She felt as if she was walking the line of hypocrisy a little too closely. She felt a lot of regret and remorse for what had been happening. She wasn't much different in thought than Devon; she was just quieter about it. She had tried to play out different scenarios in her mind about things she could have done to save the people of her past. Steve. Bethani. Countless people she didn't know, but died in front of her nonetheless. Somewhere in her mind, she knew there was something different she could have done to save each person, and it always ate away at her. She would just learn to be cold to that, so she could push it all away and finish her job. She didn't know how else to deal with the stakes. She just wished someone would understand her. She just wanted someone to know how what she was dealing with. She wanted somebody that she would be able to release her soul to. Sometimes, she felt as if she was holding so much in, she'd burst.

She blinked her long eyelashes, once again brushing her emotions out of the picture. Bobbye was still printing out papers, while talking with the decidedly loud-mouthed scientist. Devon and Demi were together, their foreheads touching, whispering between themselves. The remaining scientist had been quiet in the corner for sometime, and Claire wasn't sure if he was just extremely tired, or just scared. She imagined it was a bit of both.

Bobbye folded up the papers of the cure for the virus, and slipped them into the back of her blue jeans. She turned to the group. "Well comrades, I say we go to the hangar with Bowman and see if we can't figure out a way to get out of here. It's past five."

"Sounds good," Demi said. She wanted nothing more than to get away from zombies and hunters, take a nice shower in a hotel, and maybe cuddle with Devon while watching a movie.

"What about us?" The loud scientist had said.

"Well," Claire said, "You can come with us, if you want. You've done enough for us, I don't think it'd be right to screw you guys over."

"Oh, by the way comrade," Bobbye grinned. "The gun was empty the entire time. I thought you knew."

The scientist stared at Bobbye blankly for quite a while before simply saying, "You're kidding."

She smiled again, and spun back around to her friends, her blonde hair flopping over her shoulder.

Shrieking metal tore into their ears.

"What was that?" Demi yelled.

Claire looked around frantically for the source of the sound. She looked over towards the elevator entrance of the BioLab, and saw a large claw puncture the heavily armored door. "Oh my God, it's the tyrant."

"No, you mean that big thing that practically tried to kill us earlier?" Demi groaned in response.

Claire didn't bother to answer. "Alright, we've got to get out of here. Let's go find Jim."

Bobbye looked at the two scientists, and motioned them to follow.

Another metallic cry split the air.

"We don't have much time before it tears through that door," Devon said. "Let's get out of here while we can!"

Just as they began to walk towards the hangar doors, they began to open by themselves.

"It must be Jim!" Demi yelled out, and began to run towards them.

Devon frowned when he saw two vans enter through them.

"Demi, stop!" Claire yelled.

From the second van, four soldiers filed out, and held them at gunpoint. Devon slowly began to raise his shotgun, until Claire had given him a wide-eyed look and slightly shook her head.

"Drop your weapons, and put your hands in the air!" A soldier had yelled to them. The survivors obliged as another soldier and a thick-jawed man in a three-piece suit exited the first van.

"Well well well, look what we have here." The man had said.

"Jansen…" Claire growled.

"That's right. You've done quite a number on this campus, Claire."

She cut her eyes when she had said his name.

"You know, it's like killing two birds with one stone to know that I'll get to watch you die, in addition to testing the potential of this new virus."

Demi looked over at Devon, her eyes begging him to do something. His mind raced, yet there was nothing he could think to do.

A loud _boom_ sounded in the room, and everyone looked up to see that the tyrant had busted through the doors. Jansen smiled.

"And right on time, too."

___________________


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Familiar Hauntings

Chapter Thirteen

___________________

Bowman sat back up in the seat of the van, not quite sure what to do next. He knew Umbrella was going to kill each last one of them. He knew that Umbrella would go to any length to cover up what was going on. He just didn't know what path to take at the moment. He thought about getting out of the van to look for his shotgun, but as he looked down at his flowing wounds, he decided he didn't want to expend the effort to do so.

__

"Damn. Guess there's not going to be an easy way out of all this." He sighed in slight annoyance as he began to reload bullets into his revolver. "Damn." As he reloaded, his mind began to form an escape strategy. He loaded the final bullet into the chamber, and clicked it shut. He sat in the van a couple of seconds more, finalizing his strategy in his head as best he could. _"Guess I'm going to have to get out after all."_ With that, he started the van. It was surprisingly quiet, but he still hoped the reverberation of the metal walls wouldn't give him away. He shifted it into gear and slowly drove forward, towards the exit, then moved it into reverse, and backed up as close as he could to the hangar entrance without being spotted. He intensely stared into his rear-view mirror as he backed up, making sure he wasn't getting _too_ close. Satisfied with his distance from the hangar doors, maybe thirty feet or so, he put the van in park, choosing to leave it idling. He took a deep, sharp breath and quietly crawled out of the van. His wounds were still bleeding, and he had figured he lost quite a bit of blood, as his knees were shaky as he stepped down on his own two feet. He growled to himself quietly as he walked to another van to finish his plan. He could hear the gruff voice of Jansen as he began to crawl into the second van.

****

The tyrant continued to advance on the weary survivors, its claw wavering around its side. It leapt from the top of the stairs to ground floor, and the impact could be felt beneath Claire's feet. She gritted her teeth, not quite sure how to get out of the situation. She had to remind herself over and over again that this was not the time to resolve the predicament with guns blazing. She took a quick glance around the room. Devon was also in the state of working out an escape in his mind, as his features were intense, yet somehow distant. His brow twitched somewhat in thought, as Demi clung to her M-16 at his side. Bobbye was glaring at Claire, awaiting some sort of response on what to do. Apparently, no one could see a clean escape to the situation. She tensed more with each step the tyrant took, fear dancing in her mind.

Apparently, Jansen noted her fear too. He stood in front of the other soldiers, who had their machine guns trained on the students. "What's the matter Claire? You should be a pro at handling situations like this. You act like you've never seen a tyrant before." He smirked at his words. He was going to enjoy killing her.

Claire made no effort to reply.

"What do you want from us?" Demi finally said, courageously. "We just want to make it out of here! Why is that so wrong?"

To this, Jansen simply laughed. "You want to make it out of here? Sorry darlin', this is the end of the line. You've seen way too much for us to just let you saunter out of here." The man cut his eyes to the two scientists. "I take it they've uncovered a lot of what we came here to destroy, right?"

The loud-mouthed scientist stuttered an answer, as the other watched in horror. "W, w-well, they made us. I mean, we had to um--"

He didn't even get to finish. Jansen opened fire with his M-16, spraying the two scientists with gunfire. They both slumped to the floor; the wounds inflicted killing them instantly. Demi yelled out and gritted her teeth, and began to level the M-16 to Jansen's face, to which Devon shoved it back down. He shot her a pleading look as he moved his hand from her gun to her hand, and slightly shook his head.

"That's not a good idea, miss. Watch your temper."

Inside, Demi continued to brew with fear and anger. She bit her lip, and held onto her machine gun tightly.

Claire growled under her breath. "So, how are you going to cover up this one? Are you just going to nuke the entire town like Raccoon, or what?"

"No," he replied simply. "What would be the point of destroying innocent peoples' lives?"

His last line had shocked Claire, just as he'd intended to. "You've already destroyed _thousands_ of innocent lives!"

The official went silent for a minute and stared thoughtfully at the pipes and structural supports on the ceiling, as if contemplating Claire's last statement. He raised his eyebrows slightly and shrugged. "Well, if it's any consolation to you, I'm only going to kill four more." He chuckled to himself before adding, "Although, I'm not sure if I could call you four 'innocent' anymore. Especially you, Redfield." When Claire remained quiet, he continued. "No, we figure destroying the school by bombing all the buildings and blaming it on terrorists will suffice. It's a little rough around the edges, but for all basic purposes, the public will believe it. However, none of that matters to any of you, does it?"

Claire stood silent for a few seconds, taking time to measure the intensity of her hatred for the man standing in front of her. "Jansen," Claire boiled, "you know that if you do anything to us, S.T.A.R.S. are going to find out what happened here! It's only a matter of time before they take you under."

The man in the suit simply sighed, and pulled out a small vile full of a purplish liquid. "No Claire. I think you've got that a little backward. Umbrella's much bigger than you seem to give it credit for. S.T.A.R.S. is a small organization consisting of a few people. Although, I must say, it's quite a powerful entourage." He smiled as he inspected the viscous liquid in the bottle. "That's all going to change in the years to come, however."

Bobbye slowly backed away as the tyrant came into range. It walked between the two parties, and looked at the tattered group. Its soulless eyes came across Devon and Demi, and stared at them in remembrance. It growled deeply, before walking over to Jansen, maintaining a position on his right side. Claire shook her head in shock and despair.

Jansen continued to speak. "Know what this is, Claire?" He shakes the purple fluid at her as he begins to take a small box out of another of his pockets. When Claire was silent, he continued. "DV1. Quite a potent little chemical. Alone, it doesn't do much of anything. However, if you mix it with a specimen that has been genetically treated with this new 'Delta Virus,' it can do some pretty amazing things." He pulls a syringe out of the box, before slipping the latter back into his pocket. He pops the vial into the back of the syringe, as the fluid filtered into the shaft. "It's never been tested, either. I was wondering if you'd like to be the first person to witness first-hand the combined strength of the Delta Virus, and the DV1 material. How about it?" He flicked the needle with his hand, ready to administer it to the beast.

Claire was silent for a long while. Finally, Bobbye interjected. "Come on Claire, you can't be seriously thinking about this. You know what that stuff does. You wouldn't stand half a chance, comrade."

Claire thought about Bobbye's words. She was right. But maybe if she could just distract the tyrant and Jansen long enough, the others could escape. She was going to have to try. "Fine. I'll give it a shot. I'm going to die one way or another, right Jansen?"

He grinned with her response. "Atta girl." His attentions turned towards the grey behemoth, and he injected it with the serum. Almost immediately, the giant fell to the ground, rolling and convulsing on the floor, accompanied with otherworldly roars. Devon began to pick up the shotgun to try and get a few shots off, but the soldiers still had him sighted. It'd be futile to even try. Demi cried out and gritted her teeth due to the sounds emitted by the tyrant, and she buried her face in Devon's chest. The tyrant was still convulsing, knocking over tables and computers and experiment equipment. Even Jansen moved out of the way to avoid getting slashed by the giant claw. Finally, as soon as they had started, the convulsions and roaring stopped. The tyrant lay on the ground, its labored breathing filling the now silent room. Slowly, it began to pick itself up, into a sitting position resembling a winded track runner. Its arms were balanced on its knees, its head tucked inward.

Claire took her eyes off the monster long enough to glare once again at Jansen. "Well, at least give me a decent gun. Might as well make some sport out of this."

"Claire," Devon stated in bewilderment. "You can't be serious about fighting that thing."

Jansen laughed sadistically, and removed his M-16 from his shoulder, jiggling it playfully. "Come and get it."

"Claire," Devon said once again, this time in a more stern tone. "Don't. I'm telling you. Don't do this."

She continued to walk towards Jansen. When she passed Devon by, she whispered, "Be ready to find an opening to get out of here." Devon frowned at her words, biting the inside of his lip. Was she serious about tackling the tyrant? It simply didn't seem possible to him. 

Demi waited nervously as Claire approached both the man and the tyrant. She was half expecting Jansen to just open fire on her when she got closer to him.

Claire stopped only a foot away from the man in the suit. For a while, she just stood there, fists and jaws clenched, staring into the man's cold eyes with cold eyes of her own. He cracked a small smile in reply.

"So," she finally said. "You gonna hand over that gun?"

"Here." He slowly handed her the cold black firearm. "I'm warning you though. You try anything stupid, these soldiers will open fire." He cut his eyes at her. "So watch it."

The tyrant slowly began to pick itself off the ground, until it stood tall and erect at nine feet, four inches. It stared down at Claire menacingly, yet not making any sort of approach to her. It somehow showed anger through its milky, expressionless eyes. It was a threatening stare, meant to drill fear into the heart of its opponent. It was working, as Claire couldn't return the gaze for longer than a second at a time. Even on a level of representation, the tyrant obviously was the dominant force between the two.

Devon's mind raced for some other option. "I can't let you do this alone…" His words were soft, as he repeated them to himself. "I can't let you do this alone…" Demi shifted her troubled eyes to his. "What are you talking about, Dev?" He didn't reply.

Jansen threw the syringe to the ground, much like a smoker flicks a cigarette butt, and folded his arms. "You ready, Claire?"

Claire stepped back ten feet, and checked the clip in the gun, just to make sure Jansen actually had ammunition in it. She gripped it tightly. "As ready as I'll ever be, I guess."

The tyrant waited for an order to attack. It studied the man's actions, looking for the signal to begin its onslaught. Jansen raised up his arm, and the tyrant lowered its head, eyeing Claire.

"Wait!"

Jansen frowned, annoyed with the disturbance. Devon stepped forward, swallowing hard. "Let me fight too! If this thing is as good as you say, one more person fighting it won't make much of a difference!" He tried his best to look determined and brave, in spite of his shaky hands wrapped around the shotgun he was carrying.

The tyrant still waited for the signal to attack.

Jansen stared at Devon in a calculating manner, his eyes going over the condition of his body. Satisfied that he wasn't in top fighting condition, he agreed. "Fine. It's however you would like to die."

Demi grabbed his forearm and pleaded with him, her rose hair swaying in front of her face, touching her eyelashes, her lips. "Devon!"

He smiled warmly at her, his eyes pools of complete exhaustion. "Demi, it'll be okay. Everything will be okay, I promise. You just gotta find the right time to escape, okay?"

Her bottom lip began to quiver, as her eyes welled up with tears. "Please…Don't…Don't do this…"

He kissed her on the forehead, and holding her cheeks with his hands, he replied, "I'll be okay." He winked at her. "Promise."

Devon didn't see the signal Jansen had given the tyrant. He swiped his hand down to the ground in a swift manner, and the tyrant charged forward. Claire was the target. Bobbye yelled to her friend. "Claire, look out!"

Claire was well aware what was happening, however. She opened fire on the tyrant, the bullets spattering on his skin, erupting into tiny little sparks of blood. However, it didn't even manage to slow the beast down. As it came into range, the tyrant swung its mighty claw level with Claire, intending to slice her in two from the waist. She rolled between its legs, causing the tyrant's claw to hack into a computer tower and monitor, which erupted into shards of debris and glass. As Claire was righting herself back up to a standing position, it backhanded her across the cheek with its other fist. She was knocked off her feet, and finally hit the ground eight feet away. She slid across the waxed floor, and tried to pick herself up. Her vision was blurred, and she couldn't even tell what she was looking at. She could feel the vibrations of the monster coming closer, however. With each step, it came closer to sealing her fate. She absently touched her forehead, and wiped away the blood that flowed from her mouth.

The tyrant was closing in on her fast. "No!" Devon yelled, as he began to fire high at the beast advancing on Claire. He shot three bursts from his shotgun, before the thing could even turn around. It now had moderate wounds on its back and head - wounds that would probably kill any other natural living creature. It spun around, and ran toward Devon in a full sprint. He fired one more round into the creatures face, with slowed it enough for him to dive out of the way. From the side, Bobbye and Demi watched in horror as their friends tackled something that they were sure couldn't be beaten. It was like a modern day David and Goliath match.

The tyrant continued to stab at Devon on the ground, and each time he was barely able to roll out of the way. Devon made his way underneath one of the sleek grey desks, and began to crawl through the maze of metal and technology, moving around computer towers and the desks' metal legs. The tyrant stood above, toppling over everything in its path. Sparks and paperwork went airborne, as Devon continued to crawl away. He gritted his teeth as twisting metal and sharp banging rang in his ears. He dared not look back. His breathing quickened to short rasps as he continued in his attempt to escape.

Claire had finally managed to get back onto her feet. She felt the top of her right brow, and when she pulled her hand away, she saw the familiar red substance coating her fingers. She blinked a few times to restore her vision and get some of the blood out of her eye. She watched for a few seconds as the monster flipped over table after table to get to Devon. She leveled her M-16 back with the creature's head, and began to fire. The bullets found their mark, and it stopped its rampage. Instead, it turned around, and looked to the ceiling and roared in the midst of getting sprayed by bullets. Claire continued to fire, still unfazed by the beast's actions. The creature's arms and abdomen began to bulge out, and it shrieked in pain. Almost instantly, the arms and stomach muscles ballooned to almost twice the size as they were originally. It held its arms over its face in a protective fashion as Claire continued to fire. However, the bullets were no longer hitting their mark. They bounced harmlessly off the creature, creating sparks in the process. It slowly began to advance on Claire, her bullets no longer effective. She might as well have been firing at a steel wall.

Jansen laughed in light of the most recent turn of events. "That's the beauty of the DV1 chemical right there Claire!" His face contorted into a wicked grin. "You're done."

Claire frowned at the ineffectiveness of her attack. It was then that her gun had fired the final bullet. The clicking sound told her that she had to find another way to fight. She growled in frustration as she threw the strap over her shoulder and began to run around the beast. Slowly, it changed its trajectory to follow Claire. It was quite slow in this state, but she was sure if that thing got its hands on her, it would mean death. "Devon!" She yelled, "Where are you!"

Devon stood up, motioning her over. "Here! Over here!" He managed to take another shot at the beast as it slowly swiveled around to face him. Claire ran to his side as he shot his final two blasts at the creature. "It's not working," he trailed off. "…We've got to find another way to kill this thing!" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few more shells and began to load them. "Any ideas?!"

She shouted back to him. "Not yet!" Claire could hear Jansen laughing in the other part of the room, but tried to remain focused on what was happening in front of her. After he had finished loading his shotgun again, Devon bent down to unplug a monitor from a computer. He then grabbed the cord and screen, and moved to a more open area, away from Claire. He began to swing it around his head, much like a medieval flail. He gritted his teeth as he felt the pain in his knuckles begin to pound against his skin in rhythm to the rotation of the spinning screen. He began to yell to release the pain. When he got enough momentum going, he released the monitor at the beast. He hit it square in the stomach, but it simply wasn't enough to affect the monster. The monitor shattered on impact, and fell to its feet, where it was crushed under its heavy weight.

Devon sighed in frustration working the pain out of his hand my moving his wrist in circular motions. "Well, scratch that idea, I guess." He walked backwards, meeting Claire at her side, speaking to her, but never taking his eyes of the creature. "Anything else?"

Claire answered indirectly. "This is insane. We can't even hurt it now. How are we supposed to…?"

The two were slowly being pushed back into the corner of the room.

"They're going to die..." Bobbye said. She shook her head. She hated to say it, but it was true. The tyrant had beaten them somehow. She glared at Jansen, who was completely enveloped in gruesome delight at the scene. Even the soldiers were somewhat taken off guard by the utter carnage they were witnessing. Their weapons were more pointed at the floor than at the two girls. Bobbye noted this as an opportunity at an escape, and she whispered into the girl's ear. "Okay Demi, here's what we do. I want you to-" She didn't get the chance to finish her strategy. In the middle of the commotion, a white van had entered the room, its tires peeling out, leaving black skid marks on the floor. Before the soldiers could react, the third van had slammed into the back of the second one, causing Jansen's van and the second one to V-neck around the Umbrella official. The van had managed to run over three of the soldiers on its way to block Jansen in. It was then that Jim Bowman emerged from the van, shooting one of the guards in the back of the head.

"What the hell?!" Jansen yelled as he turned around to see he was completely boxed in.

Claire and Devon looked at the south end of the room to see a third van, and a broken and weary Bowman now in the room. They exchanged a thankful glance among each other before they sprinted along the perimeter of the wall, allowing themselves room to move around the tyrant. When they were a reasonable distance away, they cut a ninety-degree turn and sprinted towards the commotion. Devon yelled out, "Let's go!" to his friends as he grabbed Demi by the arm, and sprinted to Jim.

"Devon, in here!" Jim yelled as he ran towards the other van he had strategically placed in the hangar.

The four began to run as the tyrant began to roar again, its torso shrinking to normal size once again. It was then that it began to sprint towards Jansen.

Jim jumped into the van, and opened the back doors to allow everyone to jump in. He yelled to Bobbye as she was coming towards it, "Hey, you! Drive!"

Bobbye hopped into the driver's seat in silent obedience, taking a quick second to get familiar with the setup of the van. She looked into her rear-view mirror, as Claire, Devon and Demi began to close in on the van. However, she spotted another soldier taking cover behind one of the vans, about to open fire. Bobbye yelled to no one in particular, "Soldier behind the van! Look out!"

Jansen growled at this new turn of events, as he pulled out his magnum from his holster. He jumped through one of the vans to get a better shot at the escaping students.

Out of the corner of her eye, Demi saw the soldier that Bobbye warned them about. She pulled away from Devon's arm, stopped and opened fire on him about the same time he did. The soldier had shot up the side of the van with a few rounds before one of Demi's found its mark. It embedded on the side of the soldier's calf, and he dropped to the ground, rolling along the ground and holding his leg in pain.

The tyrant ran to Jansen just as he climbed out of the van. It stood there, awaiting further orders. He looked up at the beast with vengeful eyes. "No, you dumb animal! I told you to kill them!" He pulled the hammer back on the gun. "Kill them all!" The tyrant turned on its heel and suddenly began to sprint towards the girl, who had just finished firing at the soldier, she saw the massive being running for her, and she turned towards the van to attempt to make a break for it.

Devon jumped in the back of the van with Claire, and looked back, to see that Demi was firing on a soldier. He was about to tell her to get going when he saw Jansen pull back the hammer of his gun as he was ordering the tyrant. He then leveled it at Demi.

"NO!"

He jumped out of the van, as Claire cried out, "Devon, we have to-" He didn't hear the rest of her sentence. He heard a single gunshot - it was loud enough to block every other sound around him. He looked to Demi as he stumbled toward her with frantic eyes. It seemed his legs wouldn't carry him fast enough. He saw her confused expression as she was suddenly propelled forward. Her crimson hair fluttered in front of her face, single red strands dancing across her cheeks, her lips parting slightly in a painful wince. She never saw it coming, and she fell to the ground gracelessly. In the span of a second, Devon had slid by her side on his knees, and grabbing the back of her shoulders, picking her up with his arms. He noted a small hole just under her left shoulder blade as he turned her over, seeing a quickly spreading pool of crimson spanning outward from another larger opening just above her left breast. Devon gasped audibly at the damage, then looked to her eyes. They were transfixed on his - and for that moment, there was no pain in them, nor any regret or sorrow. He began to feel something in his heart he couldn't place. He frowned in a troubled manner as he gazed upon Demi's serenity. Finally, he looked up to see who had fired the bullet. However, his attention couldn't help but focus on the advancing tyrant in front of him. He stared at it, not comprehending what was happening. His world was slowing down, and he couldn't see, feel, or think. He simply watched the tyrant sprinting for him. He was becoming merely a spectator of his life.

Jansen pulled the hammer back to kill the boy, but released it when he saw Devon's frozen features, and the tyrant screaming toward him. That would be more entertaining anyway.

"Damn it," Bowman yelled. "Claire, use this!" He handed her one of his clips for her M-16. She loaded it as she watched the tyrant lower its claw to the ground, ready to perform an upward slice to kill the both of them with one attack. She yelled in desperation as she brought it up to eye level and pulled the trigger, hitting the tyrant in the chest and face. It stumbled back awkwardly before falling on its side. It was obvious it wasn't expecting gunfire. It slowly tried to upright itself; the creature was now bleeding from many different wounds on its body.

"Son of a…!" Jansen yelled as the tyrant was dispatched for the time being. He was about to shoot once again at Devon, but had to take cover due to fire from Claire. He slipped around the side of the van, to where the injured soldier was, and swore to no one in particular. "We're going to have to chase them!" Jansen had said. "Get up!" He picked the young soldier up by the back of his fatigues, forcing him to stand on his leg, which had evoked a loud yelp from him. The Umbrella official and soldier scurried into one of the vans, and began working at releasing it from the tangle of the other vehicles.

"Devon, let's go! Grab her and go!" Claire cried as the tyrant began to right itself.

Devon stared down at Demi dazedly. She was the only thing that mattered to him right now. He didn't hear anyone else. He raised a shaky hand up to his cheek, caressing it softly. The calmness of her eyes was replaced with a stress and pain as she arched slightly to help say the words she wanted to say. "Hey…we need…to get…out of here…let's go…" His perplexed face became coated with fear and despair as he realized the gravity of the situation, as if he had only now noticed what had happened to her. "Demi, you're…!"

"Devon, let's _go!_" Claire screamed at him. This time, he listened. He picked Demi up, and trotted her back to the van, never once taking his eye off her wound, still obviously in shock. He jumped into the back, and Jim and Claire closed the doors behind him.

"Bobbye," Jim yelled, "get out of here now!"

She peeled out towards the exit of the hangar. "To where?!"

"It doesn't matter! Just drive!"

The tyrant had begun to sprint after the van. Jansen had managed to free his van, and soon was in pursuit as well.

"We can still kill these kids," Jansen growled. "Keep that gun trained on them." He cranked the wheel sharply to the right to move between the side of the hangar door, and the last van.

Bobbye pressed the pedal to the floor as she passed row after row of vans. The hangar entrance was a steep grade of maybe fifteen degrees, and the tunnel appeared to be a good distance over a mile long. The grey sky was hard to see at the distance, but even then she could tell that the sun was close to coming up. She then glanced into her side-view mirror, noting the tyrant slowly gaining on the van from twenty feet away. Coming up on its side was Jansen in his van. Bobbye yelled back to the rest of the group. "Hey guys, you're gonna have to take care of them for me!"

Bowman glanced towards Devon, who was cradling Demi in his arms. Devon was behind her, and she was propped up into a halfway upright position, her head resting on Devon's chest. Bowman was going to ask him to help fire on the threats, but Devon ended up speaking before he could start his request. "Please Demi, hang on. We're going to get you out of here, but you have to hang on…" He pulled her hair out of her face, streaking finger marks of blood across her cheek from his own stained hands. He pressed into the wound in an attempt to stop the copious bleeding. "There's so much blood…" he murmured distantly.

Bowman didn't know what to do. It was these types of situations that he was worthless. He didn't know what to say, so he decided to stick to what he knew he was good at. He kicked open on of the small windows on the back of the van, and he grabbed one of the side mounted M-16s in the van. He fed a clip into it and stuck the barrel of the weapon out of the vehicle, and began firing on the attackers.

Claire moved closer to the two, unsheathing her boot knife. "Here Devon, let me lend a hand." Claire leaned over the injured girl, and tore the top of her shirt down with the knife, exposing the deep red gore of the wound. Claire was taken aback by how much blood poured out of the injury. The blood would actually pulse in rhythm to her heartbeat. She felt a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach - she wasn't sure if Demi would make it. She slightly turned Demi on her side, noting another massive wound on her back. The bullet had gone clean through, and she was losing blood from both sides. She shook her head absently as she thought.

"Oh my God…" Devon said, mortified at the sight of the extent of Demi's injury. All he could do was helplessly stare at the situation. He had all but forgotten how much danger he and his friends were still in. Instead, he focused on the blood streaming out of his girlfriend. She strained to speak through stifled grunts and moans. "Devon…help me…"

He shook his head as his eyes began to sting. He replied, shouting loudly, "I'm trying! I'm trying!" He looked behind, to the front seat, where Bobbye was driving. "Bobbye, get her to the hospital!"

Bobbye screamed in response, her loud tone unusual for the girl. "I've got bigger things to worry about right now! Help me get them off my tail!" She growled through her words, as the tyrant began to gradually pull closer to them, even though Bobbye was doing forty miles an hour and climbing. The van wasn't far behind, maybe five feet behind the tyrant. On top of that, Bowman's firing at the tyrant wasn't slowing it down much.

Claire sat back, unsure of what else she could do for Demi. Instead, she reached her hand out to Devon. "Take off your sweater, and press hard on Demi's chest with it. Rest the back wound on your knee. It may be uncomfortable for her, but that may stop some outward flow, but I'm not sure if it's going to be able to last. In the meantime, give me your shotgun."

Devon nodded quickly as he handed the weapon to his friend, and proceeded to remove his sweater from his body, revealing a torn and bloody white shirt underneath, from where he had sustained other minor wounds and cuts. He rolled it into a ball and pressed it deeply on Demi's chest, as he shifted his body to accommodate the other hole on her back. "You'll be okay Demi! I'll just keep pressure, and you'll be fine!" He couldn't help but yell his words.

"Damn it!" Bowman yelled as he emptied the last of the rounds into the tyrant. It was now a bloody mess, yet somehow it still pressed on. It was actually only eight feet away, with the van actually catching up to it. "Claire, get your ass in gear and provide some damn cover for me!"

Claire was beyond taking offense to Bowman anymore. She leaned back, kicking the other van window out, and began to fire on the tyrant as well. The shocks of the blasts were taking a toll on the massive beast, as its head would snap back with each successive shot. Bowman threw in another clip into his gun, and opened on the tyrant once again.

The tyrant began to slow down by a decent margin, allowing the van of survivors to pull away from it. The beast let out a maddening roar as it slowed down even further, away from the battered team.

"That did it!" Bowman cheered, wincing slightly under his wounds. He then redirected his attention towards Jansen. "Now, take out that other van!"

The walls of the hangar blurred by, as they group passed the last of the rows of vans, giving them a bit more freedom to move around. Bobbye decided to exercise this new freedom by swerving out of the way of an attempted sideswipe by Jansen.

The official growled as his missed attack caused him to swerve wildly. The sound of the squealing tires was deafening in the barren tunnel. He corrected, and replied by firing a few rounds from his magnum. "Keep firing," he told his lackey. "I'm going to pull you up next to them, aim for the driver!"

Bowman yelled as he ducked out of the way of the soldier's line of sight. Numerous bullets riddled the outside doors of the van. "Holy hell! I'm hoping these doors are bullet proof!" He wiped the intermingled blood and sweat from his brow as he opened fire at them again, aiming for the tires. The bullets seemed to harmlessly bounce off. "Damn it!" He cursed once more.

The van screamed forward, the front passenger window now adjacent to the back glass. The soldier opened fire again, however this time it wasn't directed at the back of the van. Bobbye screamed in response as she was showered with crystals of glass and ricochet rang in her ears. Her van began to violently sway over the road, causing Jansen to brake somewhat. She looked in her side view mirror, and screamed out, "He's trying to take me out! Don't let him get up here again!"

Devon struggled with Demi slightly as her weakened hands tried to pull his own off her wound. She looked at him with pleading eyes.

"Demi, I know…" He stated as soothingly as he could. "I know it hurts, but we need to keep it there for now, until we get to a hospital, okay?" He could feel the sticky properties of blood soaking through the sweater. He shuddered. "We'll be at one in a few minutes, okay? They'll help fix you up, then everything will be fine."

She frowned, and clenched her teeth. "What's…going on outside…why are we…shaking around so much? It…hurts when we…move…" The girl would convulse somewhat while speaking, as if she needed momentum to hurl her words out.

Devon shook his head. "We're getting out of here. Just be strong. For me, okay?" Devon looked into her tired eyes with his own. She swallowed deeply and gasped, then nodded slowly.

Jim fired into the windshield of the van, as the bullets bounced off harmlessly. "Damn. Well, the _windshield's_ bullet proof, we know that much."

Jansen began to accelerate again, as he slowly began to pass the back of the van once more.

"No, no, no!" Bobbye yelled. "Stop him, comrade! He's getting too close!" Bobbye hurtled the van in his direction in an attempt to scare him off. Jansen simply swerved, and continued to gain.

Claire angled her machine gun out the window, taking a last ditch shot at the soldier preparing to open fire on Bobbye again. A spray of red on the windshield proved that one of her bullets finally found its mark. The van pulled away abruptly and the extent of the damage caused was seen. Claire had hit the soldier near the front of the head, just above the area between the eye and the temple. Blood had coated the entire passenger side of the windshield. "Got him!" She cried.

Bobbye looked in her side view mirror once again. She studied it for a minute, before shaking her head. "No, you didn't get Jansen! He's still able to drive!" She watched him slowly accelerate yet again. This was quickly becoming maddening to Bobbye. She stared forward, concentrating on the outside world. She was only quarter-mile or so away. The hangar continued to slope upward, until she could see the grey morning sky waiting for her. With each second that passed, the exit seemed to get larger, allowing her to see more of the nearby environment out of the gates. Orange hues in the sky were coming into view, as buildings also became apparent into the light. She wasn't familiar with any of them, but she was hoping she'd be able to gain her bearings of where she was soon after.

Jansen screamed in frustration as he tried to drive with his knee while reloading his magnum with his final six bullets. "You're not getting away!" He snapped the chamber back into his gun and he opened the console to reveal a numerical keypad, on which he entered a six-digit code. "Damn," he growled. "Never figured it'd come to this." He looked into his mirrors. "And where the hell is that tyrant!" He yanked at the machine gun around the dead soldier's neck, shouting obscenities at the dead individual until he actually managed to free it. He soon found it too unwieldy to use while driving, and cursed once again before throwing the weapon out his window. He yelled irritably once again, firing three of his shots at the back windows.

****

Outside, morning was fast approaching. Early morning robins and whippoorwills sang their routine songs. Somewhere in the distance, a rooster was crowing. Despite the presence of buildings and towers, the air was still fresh and crisp. The breeze sounded through a few nearby oak trees, and the rustling of the leaves prevented the sounds of nearby passing cars to be heard. The hues of the sky were a melding beautifully, and the morning star continued to stand watch over the Earth, even as daylight was only minutes away. However, tranquility was soon broken with an ugly, metallic buzz. A large blue light began flashing on a large underground bunker. The bunker itself was built into the ground. It was very tall - twenty feet in height. However, the grains of sand on top of the gaping underground passage began to sift and rattle as giant mechanical gears began to work somewhere underneath it. From the sides of the entrance to the hangar, large, heavy steel doors slowly began to close.

****

Claire saw him level the gun near her side, and she pressed against the wall. She felt the wind part in front of her and heard the 'zip' sound of the ricochet as it bounced off the wall next to her, embedding in the front passenger seat of the van. It seemed to snap Devon out of Demi's situation for a minute, as he jumped and yelled, and cocked his head and raised his eyebrows towards Claire in a "be careful" look. She stared at the cloth tear in the back of the seat.

"Holy shit!" Bowman yelled in surprise as he saw the smoke erupt from the spot in the van where the bullet tagged. He launched his counter-offensive, trying to maneuver his weapon in for a clean shot at Jansen, but to no avail. "Damn!" he swore, "Claire, I can't shoot that guy! I can't angle my gun! Even when he slows down, I can't break through the glass!"

"I'm on it!" Claire replied as she tried to swivel her gun to fire too. He was simply too far past them for Claire and Jim to be a threat. "I can't get him either! The windows are too small!" She then set her sights on his back right tire. "I'm going for the tire, then!"

Bowman shook his head. "No! It's worthless! They're made of pure rubber!"

She fired on them just to make sure for herself. "Great," she scoffed. She glanced at Devon for a second. It didn't even seem like he knew any more than Demi did at the moment, he was so engrossed in her. He was providing encouragement and support for her though, so maybe he was playing an important part after all. Her eyes then wandered to the side profile of Bobbye in the seat in front of Jim. "Bobbye!" She yelled to her.

"Yeah!"

"We can't get Jansen, you're going to have to take him out!"

She looked in the rear view in disbelief. _"Take him out?!"_

Claire shook her head. "You have to!"

Bobbye closed her eyes for a second, before focusing them on the road again. It wouldn't be much longer before they were out of the hangar. She estimated roughly thirty seconds until they were outside. She squinted at the exit, and her mouth dropped open. She shook her head and looked again to make sure she wasn't seeing things. "Oh, this just gets better and better," she stated plainly.

"What do you mean?" Devon had overheard her, and awkwardly interjected into the middle of the action.

"Jansen's closing the hangar gates up front!"

"Well hell," Bowman stated in usual flair. "This _does _just get better and better. Well, let's kick it into gear!"

"Okay," she yelled back to her friends, "this could get a little bumpy!"

Claire's attention became shortly focused on the young freshman that lay in Devon's lap. "Demi, hold on, okay? We're gonna bounce around for a minute, but everything will be okay…okay?" She frowned at her awkward placement of words.

Demi lazily shifted her glazing eyes to Claire, and nodded. Claire's features then hardened as she clenched her jaw and stared at Devon. Claire was trying to tell him that she might not make it. Devon apparently didn't understand, as he simply cocked his head and frowned.

It was then that Bobbye took the offensive. With mighty force, she collided into Jansen's van, throwing him into the far-left wall, showering sparks along the floor.

Demi groaned under the violent shakings, once again trying to remove Devon's hand from her wound.

"Oh no you don't!" Jansen growled as he gripped the jerking wheel and turned in Bobbye's direction, backing her off into the center of the road. He then surged forward, gun in hand, ready to shoot when he had a decent opportunity. Bobbye tried to accelerate to compensate, but her heavier load prevented it. She leaned back and turned her head away as he fired his final three rounds at her, one of them breaking her side view mirror. She braked, then slammed her foot on the accelerator again. "Damn it!" he yelled as he threw the gun into the floorboard. Jansen tried to compensate for her loss in speed, however, he had braked too much, and had fallen a few feet behind her back bumper. "I'll get you one way or another!" With that, he pulled away roughly six feet from the van, and cranked the wheel, smashing the right taillight and bumper.

Bobbye yelled as the van began to fishtail wildly, the van sliding across the hangar on two wheels. She nearly smashed into the wall on the right side of the hangar. She sucked in two short quick breaths. She had almost lost it.

"Geez!" Claire cried, frightened. "Watch out!"

"Hey!" she yelled back, "I'm trying my best, comrade! Just keep cool!"

Meanwhile, Bowman was quite impressed. "Damn, the girl can drive too!" He sneered at Claire, as he leaned against the wall in a nonchalant manner. He sneered at Claire. "Stop back seat driving! She got us this far, didn't she?"

As Jansen began to pull away for another crack at turning them over, Bobbye's face became grim with determination. "Alright, you want to try that again? I got ya."

The Umbrella agent smiled to himself as he swerved to flip them over and finish the job.

With crucial timing, Bobbye braked while slightly turning to the right. Jansen had no time to react. He toppled over the front end of the van, sending his own into a one-eighty. He slammed into the right wall on his side as he yelled in surprise. Smoke and sparks teemed from his vehicle as the paint was whittled away.

Bobbye corrected the wheel as she continued to watch the spectacle in her passenger side view mirror.

"Oh hell yeah!" Bowman cheered. "Good job, Bobbye!" Jim and Claire watched as the van toppled onto its driver's side and slid up the ramp. The crash was alive with numerous sparks spurting from the twisting metal, before finally slowing and stopping.

Bobbye refocused her sights on the closing gates only one hundred and fifty feet away. "Hold on guys!" She slammed her foot even harder on the gas pedal in hopes that it might make her go just a little faster. She quickly shifted glances between her speedometer and the exit - she was pushing fifty-five. _"Maybe I'll have time to spare after all."_

****

Jansen climbed out of his battered van, bloody and exhausted. He had climbed over the dead soldier that was still strapped to the passenger seat, and had flopped to the ground, knocking the wind out of him. He heard an odd sound coming from deeper in the tunnel, and heard the grunting of the tyrant as it streaked by, showing yet another form of cellular transfer. Between gasps of air, Jansen coughed out his words. "Don't…let them…escape…"

****

Bobbye frowned, determination still residing in her features. "We're almost home free! Just a little longer!"

Behind them, in the reverberation of the cold tunnel, Claire heard something.

Jim noticed Claire's detached glaze and decided to inquire. "What the hell are you doing, Claire?" It was then he looked out the back of the van. "Oh, _shit!_"

The tyrant had sprinted within twenty feet of the van; it's legs bulging from the cellular transfer. It was going over sixty miles an hour on foot, and its claw was pulled back to puncture the back of the van.

"What?!" Bobbye yelled back as a shock wave traveled through the van, and her speed began to stop substantially. She looked back to see that the tyrant had attached itself to the back of the van by stabbing its scythe into the middle of the right door, narrowly missing Claire.

"I thought it was dead!" Devon yelled, "How did it…" He couldn't even find the words to finish.

"Get rid of it!" Bobbye yelled as she jerked around the wheel, trying her best to line up between the shutting gates. "I might not make it if that thing is bogging down my speed!" She only had roughly fifteen feet of space between the doors.

The tyrant removed its claw and punctured another hole just below the first, and began to work it in the door. It was looking to rip it off.

"Look out!" Bowman yelled as he jumped over Demi to Claire's side of the van. "Bobbye, be ready to compensate to the left, got it?!"

Bobbye wiped perspiration from her brow. "Okay, just hurry!" She could see the distant buildings and outside environment through the space between the large metal gates. She was coming onto the field technology center of the university, located a few blocks down. _"This must be that odd hill that's restricted for use,"_ She thought. _"I always wondered what this was."_

Claire yelled to Bowman, her features twisted up in a state of confusion. "What are you doing?"

Jim didn't answer. He reached for the back handle of the right door, turned it, then kicked it open. The tyrant went flying with it, landing hard on the ground with its claw still embedded in the door. The van's front left wheel left the ground completely, as it swerved heavily to the right, aimed directly for the right hangar door, not forty feet away. The buzzing was now filling the chamber, along with the angry roar of the tyrant. It picked itself off the ground as Bobbye veered violently to the right, disorienting the tyrant again, and knocking the door out past the van's right side.

"Hope for the best, guys!" Bobbye cried out as she aimed for the straightest possible path through the doors. It was going to be close. She began to snarl as she gripped the wheel tightly, bracing for possible impact. She was doing everything she could just keeping the van steady.

Bowman scuffled back over to his spot in the van, and waited. He wasn't sure if they were going to make it or not, but he gripped the back of Bobbye's seat, hoping it would provide a small amount of protection.

Devon crouched over Demi in a protective manner, unsure of what was about to happen. He closed his eyes and held his breath, listening to the raspy breathing of his girlfriend.

Claire gripped the passenger seat, and stared forward at the nearly closed gates, her teeth clenched, and ready for anything.

Just as it began to show success in freeing its claw, the tyrant looked forward to see a steel door moving in front of it. It continued striding with the side of the van, knowing its speed was too high to stop in time.

Bobbye closed her eyes as she drove the van between the opening. She had hit the doors at an angle - the left side of the van had scraped along the left gate, but the right cleared by about six inches. The tyrant hit the right side of the door at about forty miles an hour, erupting into a sinewy explosion. The force had taken off the right side of the door, as well. The van started to slide, and Bobbye opened her eyes just in time to watch them go through a chain link fence. She yelled in surprise as the van had successfully managed to break through the metal. She then braked to a stop, and for a while, she simply stared straight ahead at one of the tech buildings, thinking, doing, or saying nothing in particular.

Devon was the first one to speak. "Did…we make it?"

Bowman began to laugh as he whooped and shoved a triumphant fist into the air. "Hell yeah, we did!" He complimented Bobbye once again. "Pretty damn good driving, I'm impressed! You even took off the tyrant!" He smirked. "Even though I did have a little to do with that."

Devon returned his thoughts to Demi. "Demi…she needs a doctor. Bad." He looked down at her. She was very still; her breathing further reduced to small gasps for air.

"Devon…I'm…not going…to make…it, am I…?"

His heart sank to her words. He sighed deeply, fighting back tears. "Hey, come on. Don't say that. We're only a few blocks away from the doctor. Just, hang in there, okay?"

Bobbye silently began driving, taking the nearest dirt road which led off the grounds to the nearest road.

"I…don't…think…I can…"

He shook his head softly as he tensed his lower lip to keep it from shaking. "No, no no no, don't say that. You can. You _have_ to. We still have so much to do together." He traced his finger down the side of her face.

She let out a single chuckle and then winced. She waited a few seconds before gaining the strength to talk again.

"Like…what?"

He blinked, and as he did so, a tear escaped his eye. "Like what…? Um, like, we…we can go ballroom dancing, or we can go to the movies…or take a trip to somewhere." He smiled bravely. "If you could take a trip anywhere in the world, where would you want to go?"

She closed her eyes, and smiled. "California…beach…I love…the beach."

Claire peered straight out the back window, deeply disturbed. Devon was using death banter - he was simply talking for the sole purpose of keeping her alive. Something about that scared her so deeply, and it seemed to unearth feelings inside of her she couldn't quite place. In some respects, it was almost as if one was talking to the dead. She was about to lose another one of her friends to Umbrella. She didn't think she could handle this anymore. Her eyes began to cloud over with new tears.

Bowman took a similar approach, but instead, he chose to stare at the upholstery between his bent legs. He swallowed, knowing she probably wouldn't make it. He'd known Demi for almost six years, ever since Devon had met her. They spent a decent amount of time together back in their high school years in Oklahoma. But to him, it didn't seem like the same Demi. Something was missing. Something was wrong.

"Well then, we'll go to the beach. We'll spend a whole week at the beach, and do nothing but watch sunsets and swim and be together. So, stay with me, okay?" He didn't get a response from her. "Demi?"

Claire slowly looked at the girl, tears falling down her face. Yet, she remained silent.

"Demi?"

Bobbye turned onto a paved road, and began to drive east. The hospital was only a mile down the road, yet she wondered if it would do any good.

"Demi!" Devon clutched her in desperation, hugging her tightly, tears streaming out his eyes. "No, come on, please don't do this!" He checked her pulse, and paused. He frowned and raised his head back, expressing his surprise to feel it, faintly. "What?"

Bowman looked over towards the two, puzzled. "Did she just pass out?"

"Bobbye, get us to the hospital, fast!"

___________________


	14. Chapter Fourteen: Epilogue

Familiar Hauntings

Epilogue

___________________

"Geez Demi, hurry it up," Devon playfully exclaimed as he waited for her to finish doing her hair. He flopped back on her bed, looking at the many posters and pictures of friends she had that lined the ceiling and walls of her room.

"Well you knew this is what would happen if you came over early!" She retorted as she peeked her head out around the corner, still curling her hair as she did so.

He laughed. "I'm twenty minutes late!"

"That's still early for me!"

He rolled his eyes and smiled. Tonight was going to be great. He had dressed up in a dark grey dress shirt, a red spotted tie, and black slacks. He had planned the evening in an attempt to help her take her mind off things that had been going on. He didn't like to see her down, so naturally he tried everything he could to cheer her up.

His attention turned from the items on the walls as Demi entered the room. She was dressed in a beautiful blue sequin spaghetti-strap dress. The dress stopped just above her knees, and it set a deep contrast with her hair, simultaneously bringing out her green eyes. Devon was speechless as he simply stared at her and shook his head stupidly, his mouth half open.

She smiled nervously as her right foot moved in front of her left anxiously. "I…don't really dress up like this a whole lot, so um, I kinda feel…"

Devon didn't even let her finish. "Good Lord Demi…You look beautiful. Wow." She cracked a smile as she took the features on his shocked face. He raised his eyebrows, still shaking his head. "Wow. I mean, that dress looks…" He chuckled a bit, somewhat amused by his own actions. "Wow."

She turned a bright shade of red as she stared at the floor beneath her feet. "Would you quit that? You know compliments aren't my thing."

He nodded slowly, as he picked himself off the bed. "Yeah, I know. Just, you should dress up like that more often. Wow." He smiled playfully as he walked forward and pulled her in an embrace. "How've you been?"

She shrugged as she breathed out her words. "I'm okay, I guess." She shook her head. "It's not exactly easy dealing with this stuff, you know?"

Devon pulled away and nodded. "Yeah, I know. But hang in there, you'll make it through." He smiled. "You always do."

She smiled again, a bit warmer this time. "So, what are the plans for tonight?"

Devon grinned deviously. "That's a surprise."

She cut her eyes playfully. "Then at least tell me what you had in mind."

He sighed. "Oh, I don't know. A little dinner, a little walk on the riverside, maybe a movie if it's not too late…Is that cool with you?"

She nodded. "Sure."

"So, it's a date then, huh?"

She laughed. "A date?"

He smiled again. "Well, since we're going to be seeing a lot more of each other, better keep close ties, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

He intently gazed upon her for a few seconds before saying, "I'm really going to enjoy us being able to see each other a lot more."

She pulled her hair back, revealing a small emerald earring for a second, before he hair fell forward again. "Yeah, I think I will too."

****

Devon blinked his eyes as he returned from the memory of that night. Everything had been perfect. It had been the summer before they both came to Arden Springs for school. Her parents were having marital problems, and for one night, Devon helped her to forget all that. That night as they walked around the riverside, he told her everything that she should know about college, about all the people he would introduce to her, and all the things they'd get to do when they were down there. They weren't together, but that night for Devon, it felt as if they were. That night he would always be able to look back upon with warm remembrance.

Because, in front of him, his life wasn't looking so bright. He sat in a small white chair next to all his friends, some from college, and some from back home. Even though Devon was surrounded by the people he cared about the most, he was lacking inside. Through a clenched jaw and tired eyes, he noted his group of friends that had come to pay their respects. 

Claire was dressed up in a soft, lower cut black dress. She stared at the back of the person's chair in front of her as the speaker droned his words behind the podium. Her hair was let down for this occasion, her flaxen hair drifting over her shoulders, and the tips of her bangs gently caressing her cheeks. Her face was emotionless, concealing thoughts deep inside her head. Despite her face's hardened features, inside she was crying out to be released. She bottled up her emotion even now, unable to find a way to release it. It kept building up pressure as she rolled over the recent events that had transpired over and over in her mind. It seemed the tears she had shed over the course of events did nothing to relieve her. She wondered if she'd ever be able to release these feelings, or what would happen if she couldn't. She had already made plans to re-enlist with S.T.A.R.S., and surprisingly, Devon had pleaded with her to help him get in as well. She had arranged a meeting for him to meet her brother only a few days after the incident. It had gone a bit rough due to Devon's condition and her brother's tough exterior, but it seemed they would get along well enough. She, Devon, and Bowman were catching a flight to New York in a few days to begin training to become full-fledged S.T.A.R.S. members.

Jim Bowman stared out to the sea, also thinking about other things. He was in an Air Force service uniform; the light and dark blue hues were complimented with medals lining the front of his shirt. Instead of wearing his service cap, he wore a decidedly more spartan black beret. His appearance was rounded off with a pair of aviator's sunglasses that fully concealed his eyes. He was thinking of how he had finally managed to break into the elite ranks of S.T.A.R.S. He cracked a bit of a smile when he saw Chris Redfield's face as he handed the small disk of all Umbrella's work to him. He was a little upset about Jim's foolish attempt to get the disk and save his friends single-handedly, but obviously impressed, and he was hired on the spot. He wondered what type of training they would go through to secure their position of usefulness on the team. He had known of the other members vaguely. He had seen Jill Valentine once or twice, and remembered her to be "hot as hell," as one of his friends in his line of work had put it. However, she appeared to be Chris's arm candy, so he decided he'd leave that well enough alone. He hadn't heard much about Barry Burton or Leon Kennedy, but he figured they'd have to be some pretty good guys if they were in S.T.A.R.S. Inside, he was also somewhat happy that Devon decided to join too. Even though Devon had clearly joined on terms of revenge, it was still going to be fun fighting along Devon's side. Once again, they'd be a team. Just like the good ol' days. His thoughts then flashed to Demi. He didn't like the fact that she was gone than anyone else, he just didn't see a purpose in crying his eyes out over it. Regardless however, Devon was changing without her, but he felt there was nothing that he could do to console him. He simply remained on stand-by and showed his loyalty by remaining in California with him for the rest of the time they had left.

Bobbye listened intently on the words of the pastor, trying her best not to let emotion overtake her. He was talking about how life is so precious, how people never appreciate it until it's gone. It seemed to be a cookie-cutter funeral eulogy. She was wearing a business suit, complete with the overcoat and matching skirt, and a white blouse. Her hair was still up in a ponytail, however. A few stray strands dangled in front of her right eye as she listened to the service. She had remembered the fated trip to the hospital after they had escaped. Devon had sprinted into the building, even though Demi had lost a pulse as they pulled into the parking lot. There was nothing the doctors could do to save her. Since then, Devon had closed off completely. He wouldn't even allow anyone to comfort him. She was never good at comforting people to begin with, but it seemed Devon didn't have anyone else to look to for comfort. She hoped that even though he didn't show it, she was helping him get through it. She thought about how Claire had stuck to Jansen's story of terrorism to keep the public in the dark as to what was going on. She didn't want to have to compete with the CIA or FBI on this case, as the corrupted officials in both would make it much more difficult to get to Umbrella. Despite the bogus story, cameramen and news reporters had flocked to the survivors with questions of what happened and how they had escaped. They began to get the hint when Devon had punched one in the jaw, laying him out flat on the ground. She was going to miss him. He, Claire, and Jim were headed to New York to join S.T.A.R.S., and she was going to stay with her aunt on the outskirts of San Diego. Her aunt had kindly opened her home to Bobbye and her friends, and she didn't want to go back home just yet. She decided she would transfer to the University of Southern California, and finish her second semester there. Claire was glad to see that Bobbye was taking a less dangerous path of life than Devon and Jim, but had told her to visit them whenever she was able, to which Bobbye agreed.

Devon listened to he pastor wrap up his sermon, and waited to be introduced to give his speech. His mouth was dry, and he nervously flipped the paper Demi's parents had given him to read. He worked his restricted right hand. A brace had been put on it to help the knuckles heal, but he found it to be more of an annoyance than anything, as he couldn't even clench his fist. He sighed in an attempt to relieve some of the anxiety. He didn't want to go up there, and talk in front of a hundred people. However, it was a pretty small funeral - Demi's parents had opted to have it in California after Devon had told them it was where she had wanted to go if they got out of the situation alive. He couldn't lie to her parents about the ordeal. For everyone else, the story of bombings and terrorists was fine, even the school-wide memorial service held for all the students that lost their lives used the story of terrorists, but he felt he owed her parents more. They had mixed reactions from the story - it was so outlandish, they wondered if Devon was somehow behind her death. They never said that, but he figured that's what they were thinking. When they looked at him, they seemed to be sizing up his personality, seeing if they could find something inside of him that would make him capable of such a thing. And through all that, they still wanted him to speak in front of everyone, knowing that Demi was very close to him. As the speaker announced Devon to come forward, a hundred memories of her flashed across his eyes, making his heart skip a beat. More thoughts of his other friends screamed into his consciousness. Eric, Bethani, and finally, Lori. He thought of all the fun he'd had with them through the years of college, and it killed him inside to know those days would never be able to return. With shaky hands, he approached the podium, looking out to the ocean as he walked up. He intentionally looked away from the open casket; he didn't want to see her like that. He didn't want that to he his final memory of her in his mind. He wanted to remember her as he had always known her. He wanted to remember her as she was for that brief time that she was with him, the both of them, together. It was quite a beautiful place for something like this - the small service was held on a bluff overlooking the ocean. The gentle sound of waves crashing against the rocks below was ever present, and the sun was setting on the horizon, converting the water surface into liquid fire. _"Demi would have enjoyed this,"_ he thought to himself. He wetted his dry lips as stepped behind the podium eyeing the crowd. Older women in solid black dresses with shaded veils convulsed in soft sobs. The men accompanying them had the look of either regret or boredom on their face - he couldn't tell. Demi's dad had nodded to him slightly as his glance fell upon him. Her mother's eyes were red and wet, and her hand covered her face every few seconds or so, as if the emotion was overwhelming her. Devon knew how she felt.

He looked over the words one last time, sighed deeply, and began to read.

"We are all here today to honor someone who has touched the lives of many people. Demi was the type of girl that," he stopped momentarily, finding the words on the paper hard to read. His mind simply couldn't comprehend the words in his state. He spoke without remembering what he said. He tried to continue. "…The type of girl that would…that would…"

Claire frowned as she saw Devon begin to choke in front of the entire audience. She continued to watch as he stood there for a good five seconds in complete silence, staring at the paper in his hands.

He shook his head, crumpling the paper in his hands. "I'm sorry Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, but I can't read this." The dropped the ball of wadded paper on the ground, and continued. "I can't even remember what I read, you know? And I want what I say to come from the heart, especially if I'm talking about Demi." He noted her dad's worried and disapproving look, but he was undeterred. He stood in retrospective silence before he started his speech. "I can remember the first time I met Demi." His eyes began to glaze over in remembrance, the painful stinging slowly beginning to fade in. "We were…well, _I_ was a senior in high school, and she was a sophomore that had just transferred in from Iowa. She was really quiet, and for a month, I had never heard anything about her." He cracked a small smile. "Then one day in the cafeteria, um, I was talking to one of my friends at a table as I walked, and I wasn't watching where I was going, and I bumped into her, and she spilled her tray all over the place. Everyone laughed at her, and I told her I was sorry, although, I was laughing too. She replied by punching me in the face and laying me out right there in front of everyone, which made them laugh harder." A few of the attendees chuckled lightly at the story. "After that, I wanted to make it up for her, and she felt bad about busting my lip, so we…just kinda hit it off, I guess."

He swallowed as the back of his throat began to ache, and his eyes slowly began to water up. "Since then, she's changed my life. She's helped to make me who I am today, and I was hoping that she would still continue to change me."

Bobbye couldn't hold it anymore. She choked on her own tears, and buried her face in her hands, pained sobs finally overtaking her body. She wasn't sure if it was because of the heavy atmosphere around her, or if it was repercussions of what she had been through, or if it was truly genuine sadness over Demi's death. Claire looked over at her, suddenly feeling the urge to join her. Instead, she raised her chin, and stared at Devon, as he continued to fall apart himself.

"She was one of those people that I could always count on through the years. She was someone I thought would always be there for me." He shook his head, the words drawing his heart deep into pain. "But I've had to deal with her being gone the past two weeks. I've had her taken from me. I've lost so many people close to me, but I swore that I would protect her. I promised her…" His voice began to waiver. "I promised something I couldn't give to her. I told her I'd get her out alive. And I know I tried, but," he wiped his eyes as he sniffed, his actions remnimiscient of a small boy. "…But I couldn't do it. I can't help but look back and wonder if there was something more I could have done…If there was something else I missed."

Bowman stared at Devon behind his glasses, his features tense. He was suddenly paying very close attention to his friend.

"Maybe there was. And if there was, I'm sorry Mr. and Mrs. Thompson that I couldn't bring your daughter back safe. And it kills me to…" Devon stopped again, fighting back the emotion for a few seconds.

Mr. Thompson's lip began to quiver at the young man's apology. He closed his eyes as his wife rested her head on his shoulder, sobbing loudly.

Devon recovered his composure, but continued his speech on a different path, now talking directly to Demi's parents. "I can't change what's happened, but I can still change the future. I'm leaving to New York in a few days to work towards finding the man that took Demi from me." He corrected himself. "From all of us. I won't let him get away with the things he's done, and I'll see to it personally that he gets what's coming to him." He paused for a second, noticing how far off track his speech had gone. He cleared his throat and wiped his eyes once more before finishing up. "I'm sorry. I'm not very good at these, but I couldn't just read someone else's feelings as if they were mine. But, um, I know this is going to be something I'm going to have to deal with the rest of my life. My prayers go out to all of you that have to suffer through this as well."

He walked away from behind the podium, and sat in his seat. He didn't look over to his friends. He simply sat, staring at his hands in his lap. His face was troubled, and his mouth was working slightly as he bit the inside of his lip. The pastor moved back up to finish the service, leaving the crowd in reflections of their own thoughts.

****

Claire, Jim and Bobbye sat at a wooden table inside the living room of Bobbye's aunt's cabin. Bowman was leaned back in his chair with his feet up on the table, as Claire leaned inward. Bobbye lay on the side of the table with her head on her arms.

"You guys leave tomorrow, huh?" Bobbye made no effort to move, she simply shifted her eyes to the corner of her peripheral vision, to Claire.

Claire nodded. "Yep. We're outta here as of eight o'clock tomorrow."

Bobbye slowly nodded in agreement. Bowman raised his hands behind his head. "You sure you don't want to come with us, Larson?"

Bobbye shook her head. "No, I should stay here. I would like to go, really I would…It's just that, I don't think I'm ready for any more excitement right now. I need to recover from all this before jumping into anything else."

Bowman was silent. It was an honest enough answer.

"Well, I'm going to miss you guys. I mean, the whole…zombie thing was quite a bonding experience, you know?"

Claire smirked, slightly amused. "I know what you mean. I just want you to know you're leaving me with a guy that says three words a day and some chauvinistic jerk.

"Hey," Bowman chimed in, "shut up woman."

Claire glared at him sharply. "You watch your mouth, Bowman. I swear, if you keep that up, you're going to be dead before we land in New York."

Bowman nodded mockingly. "Okay Claire. Whatever you say."

She rolled her eyes, shifting the conversation. "Hey, where's Devon at?"

Jim replied. "Where he's been all day. Sitting on the beach out back."

Bobbye shook her head. "He's killing himself inside. Someone should go talk to him."

Claire and Bobbye joined together in staring at the relaxing Jim in answer.

"What?" He looked between the two of them, still leaning back in the chair. "You want me to go?"

"Come on Jim, you know him best," Bobbye pleaded.

"Aw hell, you know you can't rely on me for emotional support. You _know_ you can't. I'm not made to deal with shit like that."

"But Jim," Bobbye pleaded, "Devon is lost right now, and I've tried to bring him back, but I can't. You haven't said a word to him about what's happened. Maybe you're the only one that can help him.

"Damn it."

Claire sighed as she stared more intensely at Jim. Her ponytail fell over her shoulder and around her neck as she began to speak. "I've already tried to talk to him, but he shuts me down. I'm not very good at that stuff anyway. And I don't want Bobbye to go, because that means I'm left with you alone, and heaven forbid that. So stop whining and just get him to come back in here." To finalize the deal, she kicked the back of Bowman's chair, causing him to flail wildly and land on his back. When the girls began to laugh at him, he growled, picked himself off the ground, and grabbed the back of Claire's chair, flinging it to the floor. She fell in the exact same manner that Jim had, hitting the wooden floor and yelling in surprise. "Fine," he said matter-of-factly. I'll go talk with him." He began to walk to the back door, before turning around a few steps before it. "Oh, and Claire - never do that to me again."

****

Devon stared intently into the night sky. The full moon was out, reflecting over the water in a silvery dancing line. He sat on the shore with his hands pulled far behind his body and his head facing upward. He listened to the soft lapping of the waves on the shore, as he moved his fingers in the sand. He blinked slowly, gazing upon the full beauty of the moon. It shone brightly, and he could make out the craters and a few peaks on the heavenly body. He listened to nearby crickets chirping sporadically as he reflected on the events causing his life to change. He then heard another noise that sounded like footsteps upon the sand, then a large dull thud as the person behind him fell.

"Damn." Bowman picked himself up and cursed the tree root he had tripped on. The dusted himself off as he walked, stopping a few steps behind Devon. He had no idea on what to say to him, so he just stood there behind him a few minutes, in a position not unlike a parade rest. He noted the air was surprisingly warm for the time of the season on the shore, and used that as his opening into conversation.

"It's damn humid out here. Back at Colorado State, it's probably snowing by now."

Devon didn't say anything in reply, and Bowman simply lost all tact in his verbal skills.

"Okay Devon, I really didn't want to do this, but you're really pissing me off."

Devon frowned curiously as he continued to stare at the moon.

"I understand you're sad about Demi dying. Hell, I'm sad too. But that doesn't give you the right to be an ass around all your friends. We've been friends for too damn long, and then you go and act all retarded after something like this, when you're needed the most."

Slowly, Devon replied. "Jim, do…do you have any idea, what's been lost to me? Any idea at all?"

Bowman gritted his teeth. "Yes, I do. Hell yes. You've lost what makes you who you are. You're not even the same person I used to know."

"Exactly."

"Damn it Devon!" Jim yelled, his frustration beginning to show. "What I'm saying is you don't need to lose the part of yourself that you did. That's fine you're sad about Demi, but _do something about it._"

"I'm going to join S.T.A.R.S., Jim. What do you think I'm doing?"

"What I'm saying, _Devon,_ is that if you keep your head in your ass, you may lose someone _else_ important to you." Bowman eyed Devon, as he slowly turned his hear towards Jim. He took this as an opportunity, and sat down beside him in the sand. "What if something happened to someone else you loved? In your state, you wouldn't ever be able to help them." When he was silent, he continued. "Be pissed at Jansen. That's good to be pissed. I'm pissed. But don't let it consume you with it. You still have stuff left to live for."

Devon shook his head as he looked at his friend for a second before shifting his gaze back to the horizon. "Sometimes, it doesn't feel that I do have something left to live for."

"Devon, was Demi the only reason you were happy? Was she the only thing that kept you looking forward to each day that came?"

When he didn't answer, he reiterated his statement. "Is it?"

"No."

"Then what's your problem?"

Devon shook his head, grabbing a handful of sand and pouring it out, making a small pile. "I just wonder how things would have turned out if I had managed to save her, you know?"

"Yeah, but you can't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because now, it's never going to happen, Devon." Jim began to roll his heel in the sand, making a small circular indention. "No matter how much you think about it, it'll never change. Don't dwell on things that might have been, but think of all the things that you can still do."

"Like what?"

Jim thought for a minute, scratching the top of his head. "You can still kill Jansen. That'd be fun, right? We can still hang out. You can still see the world, right?"

Devon was silent. He didn't answer. He felt that Jim was right, in a way. There were a lot of things unfinished it seemed in his mind, although he wasn't quite sure what they were at the time.

"Hey Devon, just so you know." Jim rolled his eyes at the thought of showing care towards someone. "I really did come down to make sure you were still alive."

"Please Bowman, the disk-"

Jim interrupted him. "I know about the disk, I know." He sighed. "I came down there for that, too. But I knew you were still alive down there somewhere, and I'd rather come away without the disk than you be dead. We've been best friends for who knows how long. We're a team, right? We'll stay a team, as well. We're going to have a hell of a lot of fun napalming the hell out of Umbrella."

Devon brushed one of his hands through his dark hair in exhaustion and annoyance at his situation. "I know I'm different now. I don't want to be, but I am. I'm trying to find my way back, but it's really hard to try to act like nothing happened."

"I'm not telling you to act like nothing happened. Just remember what you've got left, damn it."

Devon slowly nodded looking at his old friend. "Thanks for…everything Jim. I'll try to take your advice."

Jim shook his head, rejecting the compliment. "The girls made me come out here to talk to you, it wasn't my idea. They probably wanted some 'alone time' to spend together." Jim shook his head. "Too damn bad I don't have a camera."

Devon laughed at his friend's comment. "Figured you didn't come out here on your own."

"Well yeah, but come in anyway. Say bye to Bobbye. I know she wants to see you before you leave. You don't know when you'll get to see her again, so you need to make the most of it, I guess."

Devon nodded. "I'll be inside in a minute. I'm going to stay out here a few minutes longer." When Bowman shot him a disapproving look, he enforced his statement. "I promise. Look, just go in and tell them I'll be back soon."

Jim shrugged, "All right, well, if you don't come in, one of the girls is going to come out to talk to you next, because I really hate doing this shit." Jim lifted himself off the ground walked back to the house. Devon could hear him curse the tree root again on the way back, and shook his head. His thoughts then grew deeper, back to Demi. A troubled expression grew over his face as he lost himself in the situation once again. He ran his fingers through the sand as he listened his three friends talk inside the house. He was unsure of what they were saying, but he could make out the murmurs of each of their individual voices. He stared at the sand by his legs, contemplating his next moves in life, running them over in his head, trying to see what may come out of them. He sighed heavily, and looked to the setting moon with uncertain eyes. He then returned his gaze to the stars above, and slowly nodded as he made a pact with his lost loved one in his mind.

__

"I'm going to get him, Demi."

He nodded in approval, and then began to walk back to the house, back to his friends. The only things he had left in the world.

___________________


End file.
